Comments on: Independent 7901/Radian

By: Niall

Niall — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:52:05 +0000

I thought 26 across was just a play on Nietzsche/niche – hadn’t even considered the ‘Ich’.

By: pennes

pennes — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:17:50 +0000

Re 24 ac R U =are you; Is textspeak accepted now without an indicator?

By: MikeC

MikeC — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:00:19 +0000

Thanks Bertandjoyce and Radian. A good puzzle. My last-ins were 18d and 13,22, which took me quite a while to fathom (deep drop!!).

Sorry!

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:07:22 +0000

Thank you, Bertandjoyce for a fine blog (and also for being mentioned in despatches!) A fine puzzle too, just hard enough and an interesting theme running through it. The gateway clue was thankfully not too tricky, so you could get into the themed clues straight away. I liked RURALLY with its contemporary reference, and APOLOGIES was also clever.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:42:03 +0000

Thanks Radian for an enjoyable puzzle and Bertandjoyce for the blog. My favourite clue (among many really good ones) was 1dn.

13/22 I agree with the point made by flashling @4: I think “bottom flat” would be better than “top flat” here.

17ac and 20dn: A recurrent grumble here. I think “offer” and “lose” respectively need to be singular in the cryptic reading and plural in the surface reading. This can be solved by using “can” or “must” before “offer” in 17ac, keeping “will” for 20dn. As always, I have no quarrel with those who give greater weight to brevity in the clue.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:11:09 +0000

Tks, B+J for the so-thorough blog and Radian for the puzzle. I too found this quite hard – favourite clues APOLOGIES, BIOMASS, ENRICH. Without having checked back on anything, I think this may not be the first puzzle by Radian on this very topical theme.

By: sidey

sidey — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:06:36 +0000

Allan, I may have been being a trifle facetious.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:09:22 +0000

Sidey @2: I think you can count water as a source of renewable energy in the form of hydroelectric power. But, having said that, Radian hasn’t actually used the word ‘source’ as in other clues referncing 8d.

By: flashling

flashling — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:18:05 +0000

Just finished this, some lovely stuff ENRICH had me pondering for a while until the inevitable head, meet desk, now do it again moment. Somehow the Tea Party aren’t exactly folks I’d invite for a coffee morning!

When I used to live in an apartment block number one was at the bottom on the ground floor so hardly top flat…

By: Bertandjoyce

Bertandjoyce — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:52:04 +0000

Without wishing to start a pedantic discussion (as seems to often happen on the ‘other side’!) over thermostats, Bert agrees that a thermostat is a device in a heating system but it could also be in a cooling system. So ….’heatng device’ doesn’t quite work!
Love the mullet definition – neither of us had come across it before.