Comments on: Independent 7,923 / Dac

By: Dormouse

Dormouse — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:45:03 +0000

Re 11, Little Orphan Annie was a comic strip long before it was a Broadway musical – over 50 years before according to Wikipedia.

Couldn’t work out why 17 and 23 where what they were.

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:40:00 +0000

Re Dac#7 @Eimi so much for there never being coincidences in the Independent

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 18:12:36 +0000

All fairly straightforward, although I didn’t see all the subtleties in some of the clues. Strangely, I took a while to get 10d as I’d often thought ‘reinforcement’ could be clued much on those lines. And like K’s D and MikeC I liked 1d.

By: dac

dac — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:04:55 +0000

The Scarfe/Asher connection is purely coincidental. Had I known, I might have exploited it just a little bit more!

By: MikeC

MikeC — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:52:53 +0000

Thanks RR and Dac. Lots of neat clues here. SCARFE is probably my favourite, like K’s D. I’ll confess that I was held up for a while by 17 – HE for “what”, reversed, was ingenious. All in all, very enjoyable.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:35:53 +0000

Yes, I found this a little easier than sometimes by Dac but as enjoyable as ever. I did not think beyond chess for ENDGAME. Thanks, RatkojaRiku and Dac.

My guess (and it is only that) is that the appearance of Scarfe and Asher was a coincidence and not intentional. It was also something I did not know. And, no, I’m not expecting Dac to drop in to enlighten us…

Re Duncan’s point above, in the early days of this site blogs had headings which could give something away – I think ‘this puzzle is easy/hard’ would be similar and should be avoided. I always thought there was a golden rule if one sees someone else doing a crossword – “Never suggest or supply an answer”.

By: pennes

pennes — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:31:30 +0000

Lovely crossword, no gimmicks, all solvable from my head. The references to people were fair, as the two real people have been around for a long time and Rebus is very well known from either book or TV. It wasn’t difficult, but part of that is surely the clarity of the clueing.
A real pleasure after yesterday’s, where I have added to the many comments that over-themed crosswords can upset a lot of people , but few would be upset about a good clean and fair one

By: duncanshiell

duncanshiell — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:24:35 +0000

An uncontroversial crossword that I solved fairly quickly. Like others, I’m not sure why the SCARFE ASHER combination should be in the crossowrd today – it doesn’t appear to be either their wedding anniversary or either of their birthdays.

I note that all the commenters so far have indicated that they solved this quite quickly. I suspect that there are others, who haven’t commented, who would find it medium or hard. The reason I raise this is that there is a comment on the Site Feedback section of this website [comment 96] that says “I wish the contributors would first put how easy or hard they found the puzzle in the preamble given before one opens up their analysis”. I know this site, quite rightly, frowns upon spoilers in the initial blog lines appearing on the home page. To my mind, a throw-away assessment of the puzzle’s difficulty without explaining reasons is also a no-no. Assessment of difficulty is very subjective. If you have to give reasons in the preamble then you are going to be very close to revealing answers.

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:12:40 +0000

I thought chess for 24 too, much, much more readily solvable than yesterday for which we have to thank Dac, hadn’t spotted OK didn’t know) the Scarfe/Asher link. Thought that Scarfe was a well made clue. Cheers RR for the blog, a teensy bit easier than last week’s Mordred for you.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:32:23 +0000

Thanks for blogging, RatkojaRiku.

Like you, I solved this pretty quickly today. You never quite know what to comment about with Dac, because it’s all smoothly clued and entertaining. But I’ll pick out SCARFE as my favourite. Good spot of the ASHER and SCARFE connection, btw. For ENDGAME, I was thinking chess, where it’s the last ‘play’ of the game; but you are undoubtedly right with your interpretation.

My favourite setter here and my favourite setter in Another Place today. Life is good.