Comments on: Independent 7844/Radian

By: flashling

flashling — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 22:48:55 +0000

Double double toil and trouble. Great stuff thanks Radian. Must admit some word play passed me, TECK I didn’t know and A-Line I was rather unsure about. Cheers John on clearing them up. Perhaps I need to learn the Israeli alphabet as YOD was a guess but it had to be.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:49:33 +0000

Nice one, sidey – but it wasn’t me who coined the phrase!

By: sidey

sidey — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:19:16 +0000

I wish I had a bit more time to appreciate this excellent puzzle. Thanks both.

A mezzanine could double your floor area.

re tailback, I think Eileen calls this device ‘lift and separate’, perhaps it could be renamed ‘Playtex’ in honour of today’s puzzle?

By: redddevil

redddevil — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:04:46 +0000

Found much of this over-cryptic and never heard of A-Line, yod or idem. Given that I don’t really like clues that reference other clues doing this one straight after Nimrod’s 7836 offering was not that pleasant an experience!

By: dialrib

dialrib — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:45:34 +0000

So:
1d, 7d/16d and 29a contain DOUBLE;
1a, 7a, 10a, 11a, 15a, 18a defined as DOUBLE;
7a, 20a, 23a, 28a(YOD), 21d, 22d, 25d may be prefixed by DOUBLE;
8d contains a double PEE;
2d PHOTOFIT is a sort of DOUBLE;
and 17d(TAPE DECK) and 24a(NOSEPIECE) may be prefixed by DOUBLE?
Even 13a(UNITIVE) is a converse meaning of DOUBLE and 20d(BOSWELL) was part of a DOUBLE act.

Impressive stuff.
Too challenging for me though.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:32:55 +0000

Eileen @9 re 11ac: As I am so often pleased to say to you – good point.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:26:50 +0000

A couple more comments from me: 3dn: "in adv alight" is in Chambers 2008. hounddog @4: I take your point about references to other compilers, but Azed is not just a "setter who did a puzzle the previous week": he has produced the barred crossword in the Observer for 2062 consecutive issues, and Azed is also the name of this series of puzzles.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:13:49 +0000

Hi Pelham Barton

Re 11ac: as I realised after reading it as you both did, LE is also ‘hidden’ in L’Équipe – but I’m sure Radian intended the more cryptic interpretation!

i agree with your reading of 1ac and 10ac.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:58:09 +0000

Thanks Radian for an enjoyable puzzle and John for the blog. 1ac: I think the defintion is "making 7D". 10ac: Here I think there are two definitions: "Make a child" at the beginning of the clue and "7D" at the end, with the wordplay in between. 11ac: Nice idea. We have to take "article in L'Equipe" as referring to a word appearing in the publication. This is because my Larousse tells me that equipe is feminine, so the article in L'Equipe itself is LA not LE. Of course, that is not a problem with the clue, as I realised in the process of typing this. Apologies for my inability to type acute accents. 8dn: I thought this had to be PEE-PEE but did not see the logic of it, so thank you to Eileen and Wanderer.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:07:39 +0000

Yes, this was a absolute cracker. Many thanks, Radian, John for the blog, and those who pointed out the words that ‘double’ could precede cos I missed that. I found it extremely hard but it was very satisfying to work it all out in the end.