Comments on: Independent 7912 / Tees

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 22:04:51 +0000

Wanderer @3: Don’t forget the Ais in the fantasy wildlife park. They’d have to be in the plural of course. Possible clue: Sloths settled in Barra Island (3) – but I’m sure there are some much better ones out there.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 21:50:52 +0000

I have to confess interpreting ‘pair’ as referring to the word as in ‘to grow a pair’, in which case it refers to a pair of balls, with the obvious visible match. Maybe that’s too naughty but it makes more sense to me than the cricket connection…

By: flashling

flashling — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:46:16 +0000

What a mixed bag, lots of obvious stuff and some really mean and nasty stuff, Oneida was just plain obscure to us Brits, my personal favourite after staring at it, seeing the anagram was greetings. I swore and laughed when I twigged on that, well played sir.

Grand blog as ever Duncan and thanks PB for the brain stretch.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:07:00 +0000

Nice one from Tees. Completed the grid without fully understanding all the clues, so thanks, Duncan, for the blog. I like your caveat about Wenger being manager “at the time of writing”

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:57:02 +0000

Many thanks, Duncan, and Tees. I too found this a mixture of quite easy and quite tricky clues, with the novelty and invention one associates with Tees’ puzzles. While I did solve it correctly, there were quite a few references where I needed your explanation. Maybe it’s a sign of doing a lot of crosswords, but I got CAPITAL LETTERS straightaway. Guess in 19A the ‘unable to reach final’ may be with an eye to their chances of overturning a 0-4 deficit against Milan to stay in the Champions League. Yes, to beat them was good, but I’m sure they would remind you they made the same long journey the week before and won in the Premier League, if a little luckily, and then had their Milan trip in between. Anyway, the man ultimately responsible for all the Indy puzzles, will be the next to hope Arsenal will be beaten – this coming Sunday. Favourite clue, BAD PATCH.

By: Tees

Tees — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:52:31 +0000

Well, I could be hoist with my own petard if I don’t try to dissuade you from that. But I wish Chambers would be consistent!

By: duncanshiell

duncanshiell — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:06:31 +0000

K’s Dad @1

Having lived and worked in the home town of the Saints for over 20 years,from 1989 to 2010, I have visited The Dell and St Mary’s on many occasions and fully expect Southampton to be playing in the Premiership for many a year in future!

Tees @ 2

Thanks for pointing out the typo – now corrected

I’ve got a copy of Chambers 21st Century, but I can’t remember when I last looked at it. It never seemed to have the word I wanted when I did look at it, so I reverted to the normal Chambers. I’ll try and remember to look in the 21 st Century version in future.

By: Wanderer

Wanderer — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:22:17 +0000

Thanks Duncan and Tees, this was good fun although I failed at ACT and O’HARE. Like you, I wondered if ‘wincers and wasters’ was a set phrase, so I googled it and found…. a reference to your blog.

I thought ABOVE-MENTIONED was very clever when I realised it referred to CAIRO. Spent some time looking for a Northumbrian king called EDWEN, as I assumed the three points were West, East and North. Thanks for explaining the sporting reference – D’oh.

Our fantasy crossword wildlife park would not be complete without a sprinkling of Ratels, Ounces and even Edentata…

By: Tees

Tees — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:16:24 +0000

Hi Duncan – great blog for which many thanks. Typo at 15dn, but hardly a whopper.

Defending some of the usage: e = engineer in Chambers C21, but I see it isn’t in the proper book – have to watch that little habit of theirs; mean = ‘midway position’ (Chambers) & ‘middle point’ (Collins); bet = ‘choice of action (Chambers) & ‘course of action’ (Collins) as in ‘your best bet’.

Cheers!

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:23:49 +0000

Thanks for the comprehensive blog, Duncan. Second day running I haven’t managed to finish – couldn’t see ONEIDA at all, although as you say, it’s clearly enough signposted. A mixture of easyish and hard, I found, which is fair enough. I had no idea with the parsings of ACT, GREETINGS, ABOVE-MENTIONED and CAPITAL LETTERS, and wouldn’t have had if I had stared at them for the rest of the morning, so thanks for explaining those. The two Os in O’TOOLE are indeed the cricketing reference to a pair of ducks in a four-innings cricket match; get out first ball twice and you’ve bagged a king pair.

There was plenty to enjoy here, but HOARSEST was my favourite. I’m sure it’s been done before, but it made me smile.

I can confirm from previous exchanges that Tees most certainly is not an Arsenal fan, preferring to devote his passion to some Saintly south coast outfit who are in danger of returning to the Premier League (that will be just for three seasons, though – autumn, winter and spring …) But thanks for mentioning The Lads’ magnificent cup victory. I expect nms and I were shouting at the telly at the same time.

I’ll stop waffling about footie now before I get in trouble with Gaufrid.