Comments on: Independent 7848 (Sat 10-Dec-2011) by Nimrod

By: redddevil

redddevil — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 11:44:46 +0000

Late comment as only just found and ‘finished’ this. I’m not sure how
a) doubt = unclear (doubtful does but not doubt surely)
b) stun = out for the count (the opposite if anything, i.e. just out momentarily)
c) LANE = Kent’s bit on the side (Lois Lane loved Superman and so was HIS girlfriend and nobody’s bit on the side).

Probably too late for anyone to read this comment now – why doesn’t this site work like a normal forum where you can ‘subscribe’ to discussions by commenting?

By: Cumbrian

Cumbrian — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 15:32:07 +0000

Some of this was too tough for me, but enjoyable overall. Never heard of ROTIFERA, but google reveals that they are commonly called “wheel animals”, and never heard of AASVOGEL either. No surprise there, but I wasn’t going to get it from the clue; describing the AA as “engine experts” is stretching things a bit too far in my experience (“No idea mate, could be anything. Have to get you towed to a garage. Tow truck’ll be here in a coupe of hours.”)

I still don’t really get 4d, which seems to have too much information in the clue, and I couldn’t parse 12a – thanks for the explanation! I failed with 18a but having cheated it all made sense and was probably my favourite clue. If I’d persevered I might have got there, and it would have definitely been my favourite.

Many thanks for the blog, and for a puzzle which was nice mix of simple(ish) and head-scratchers.

By: flashling

flashling — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 14:37:19 +0000

Got tomato fine but started late and gave up half way through, thanks BM for showing me the rest and JH for yet another fine fiendish puzzle.

By: beermagnet

beermagnet — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:49:25 +0000

Thanks for the clarifications folks. Particularly RH who cleared up most of the niggles in the dead of night.

I meant to point out auTOMATOns was an “Indirect Hidden” and had marked it as my favourite clue for the great PDM it gave me on solving.

By: Bamberger

Bamberger — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:12:29 +0000

After an hour I gave up with only 3d,15a & 17d solved.

Well done Beermagnet. This was totally out of my league.

Never heard of ataxia, aasvogel, rotifera, termolando or trull.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:06:07 +0000

In 12a I took “first in championships” to mean the letter C, although “in championships” is not really necessary to indicate removing the first letter of “cats”. It’s presumably there to add to the surface reading and divert one’s thoughts away from the true implication of “No 2 but not No 3″. It certainly did so for me; the answer “at stud” was obvious but I had no idea how the last three letters followed from the clue.

Spotting the nina was helpful in getting 6d and, once I’d discovered the name of Waldorf’s companion, 18a. Btw Statler and Waldorf are also the names of two luxury hotels in the Big Apple – the latter more well known than the former I guess.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 02:14:46 +0000

Extremely evil indirect at 20.

By: Richard Heald

Richard Heald — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 01:00:34 +0000

Re 10Ac, ‘undertow’ with its tail turned leads to ‘under two’, i.e. one maybe.

The last phrase in 4Dn is a cryptic reference to (Sir Thomas) More, author of Utopia.

16Dn is definitely a CD, and a very nice one at that.