Comments on: Independent 7,870 / Monk

By: Wil Ransome

Wil Ransome — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:30:45 +0000

Nothing much to add to what PB says @18, just support for his view: ‘say’ is there because these are just two possible islands; it is not there to make the words start with capitals. Surprising that Monk has done this, and that he was allowed to get away with it.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:46:09 +0000

nms@15: I had the same thought as you in relation to 18dn, but I think “say” is needed to indicate the definition by examples, so cannot (in my book) also be a homophone indicator. I think Monk is taking a liberal view of capitalisation.

By: Monk

Monk — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:04:24 +0000

Re #3,8,16 & 17dn ... PB #3 is correct, via the reasoning at #16. The solution note is [ go(=turn) + L + go(=turn) ] {in front of} [ H in at< ] = GO/ L/ GO/ T(H)A <

By: Paul B

Paul B — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:46:11 +0000

Re #8, H does not (necessarily) need to be ‘front of hospital’, since hospital, even in the ultra-strict Times Abbreviations list, equal H of itself. I’m standing by my parsing at #3!

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:26:55 +0000

Sidey at #14, I thought ‘say’ may have been put in by the setter to meet that point. Very tough puzzle indeed but totally fair as always. Thanks, Monk and RatkojaRiku.

By: sidey

sidey — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:09:11 +0000

Small point, shouldn’t ‘man’ and ‘dogs’ be capitalised in 18 down? Without it they don’t seem to be examples of islands at all.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:26:14 +0000

Quite a few penny-dropping moments today, for example with BIVVIED, ERASURE and AMALGAMATION. SIRENIA was new to me but gettable from the wordplay.

Thanks, RatkojaRiku, for the blog, I needed it today to explain why some of the answers were what they obviously were.

By: dialrib

dialrib — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:08:45 +0000

Sorry – I somehow missed recent messages.

By: dialrib

dialrib — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:07:11 +0000

If anybody can see today's Nina that Monk refers to @5 then would you please point it out for me? Thanks. It's driving me nuts.

By: NealH

NealH — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:04:50 +0000

I found this very tough. Fortunately, a very slow afternoon at work meant I could keep chipping away at it and eventually got there. Bivvied and dozenth were the last I put in. There was a lot of stuff that was new to me – little go (I lack the Oxbridge education, unfortunately), rover as an old word for an adult scout, sirenia and toe dance were all a bit obscure. However, I really enjoyed dozenth when I finally figured it out and islands was a very well thought out clue.