Comments on: Independent 7,846 / Nestor

By: Quixote

Quixote — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:01:25 +0000

Diifficult but very high-class stuff from a colleague who is a clue-writer out of the top drawer.

By: RatkojaRiku

RatkojaRiku — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:04:44 +0000

Many thanks to Pelham Barton for explaining 4, which I wouldn’t have worked out for myself in a million years. I’ll adjust the blog accordingly.

Am relieved to read that I wasn’t the only one who struggled today!

By: flashling

flashling — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:29:54 +0000

Too hard for me and had to give up, which is a shame really, a tough one indeed RR.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:25:42 +0000

Thanks for blogging, RatkojaRiku. A bit beyond me today, really, although I got a decent start. Couldn’t finish the last four or five and when I revealed the answers I realised that I wouldn’t have got them anyway. All fair, I think, and of those I did solve, I liked END OF STORY and BLACKHEATH.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:18:22 +0000

Thanks, RatkojaRiku, and Nestor. I was v glad I persisted with this and got there in the end, understanding everything (eventually), then verifying the words or wordplay components, that I was not totally familiar with, in dicts. Very fair, imaginative and original clueing. In answer to a question posed above, this was for me much harder than Nestor usually is and he is in general among the harder of the Indy setters anyway. In other words, I spent quite a bit of time at this today, but was v glad I did.

By: Cumbrian

Cumbrian — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:22:46 +0000

Too tough for me to finish without some revealing I’m afraid – in fact I got to the frustration stage with this one! I hadn’t realised that vocal was the adjective from vowel, so there was no hope of getting 1a, particularly as I couldn’t get 4d without the starting Y. In fact the crossing 1,2,3,4 and 10 all gave me problems, thus leaving the top NW corner beyond my grasp.

Many thanks for the blog, particularly for 10a where I got hung up trying to fit “Abuse” into the reasoning, and for 16d where I was convinced that “IME” was a large recording company “up”, and couldn’t fathom another one from the letters. Blinkers off next time, maybe.

I think my favourite, out of some very clever if tough clues, was 5a.

By: MikeC

MikeC — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:38:27 +0000

Thanks RR, PB and Nestor. I spent ages on this but in the end was defeated. I think it really is a tough one: I haven’t seen wordplay like 1 and 4, and was defeated by both. I tried MOUTH for 4 (=freshness??), so could only hazard INFORM for 1 – which even I knew made no sense!!

Nevertheless, a fair and enjoyable puzzle.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:54:22 +0000

Thanks Nestor for a challenging puzzle and RR for the blog.

4dn is a homophone for U-th (21st in order), where 20th is T-th (sounding like “teeth”). This took me a while to work out.

1ac: I think we should note that the three vowels A E I have been replaced collectively by the other three, not just that each individual vowel has changed.