Comments on: Independent 7,835/Phi

By: flashling

flashling — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 00:05:29 +0000

Thanks ali and Phi, greasepaint I took as reddevil “it’s” being wrong and meaning the last character of it’s (as it were). Anyway one of my fastest solves ever, K’s D we’ll have to book you a singing telegram for tommorow to say thank you. The Grim Reaper and Police Station were fantastic thanks Phi

By: redddevil

redddevil — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 23:56:37 +0000

PB @12 didn’t feel in a hole and always enjoy the discussion. At the end of the day words and language is what we’re all interested in here right?
Allan_C @15 whilst “gat” may have originated from gatling gun it is surely more widely appreciated as a small (hand) gun? I’m sure I first came across it in Bogart/Edward G gangster movies (oops showing my age) and they hardly walked round with gatling guns!

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 22:54:09 +0000

A little more challenging perhaps than some of Phi’s, but a fairly quick solve nevertheless.
I wasn’t too happy with 10a in that a “gat” (gatling gun) is not exactly what one understands by a revolver. OK, it has a rotating barrel mechanism (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatling_gun ) but surely the term ‘revolver’ usually means a handgun? Not that I’ve had experience of either.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:17:06 +0000

nms @13: Apologies for failing to pick that up. I do not do emoticons either(!)

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:09:49 +0000

Re PB’s comment at #10, my reference at #8 was intended as tongue-in-cheek (I must bone up on those emoticons)

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:08:04 +0000

redddevil @11: We are in the sort of “grey area” territory which can be fun to discuss in the right spirit of friendship. I hope that always applies on this website. So, having dug you into a hole, maybe I can help you out of it by offering another old comment of mine

http://fifteensquared.net/2011/07/13/financial-times-13744-by-cinephile/#comment-164711

The argument I was making there was that I was happy with abbreviations forming part of the anagram fodder only if the letters required were already in the clue. By analogy, here we could note that “its closing” has the T there in front of you, and “his closing” does not actually show you the M. Maybe that is enough to make a difference. Or maybe not.

(By the way, I have not been searching through all my old comments. I have a quick route in my mind that got me back to that one.)

By: redddevil

redddevil — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 19:18:15 +0000

Good point PB – I hadn’t considered the extrapolation. I think I could just about stretch to it but I’d certainly consider it a tough clue!

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 19:03:14 +0000

redddevil @9: I wondered how long it would take you to quote that back at me. The problem with that reading is whether you could then extend the idea and accept “his closing” as an indicator for M.

nmsindy @8: Although I did the survey, I did not feel I disliked the clue for 11dn enough to mention it in that section.

By: redddevil

redddevil — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 18:27:51 +0000

I hesitated briefly over ‘its closing’ but was happy enough to read it as ‘the closing of it’ even without the apostrophe so for me it was (in PB’s own words from Blog 7825 a few days ago) ‘correct enough’.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 18:25:04 +0000

The survey form asked about clues people did not like. Maybe GREASEPAINT was there for that reason to ensure some respondents at least could fill that part in…

Never heard of SINGING TELEGRAM, K’s D? I count you as pretty lucky there.

Slightly easier, I thought, than Phi normally is and excellent as always. POLICE STATION was my favourite too. I also liked NATURE TRAIL a lot.