Comments on: Independent 7930/Monk

By: Jon88

Jon88 — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 21:08:49 +0000

Point of order: “Televised antihero” Dexter (24d) is a serial killer whose day job is blood spatter analyst for the Miami Police Department. He’s not a convicted murderer. Yet.

By: flashling

flashling — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:00:48 +0000

Seeing Monk I groaned expecting a battle ahead, but then the thought of a Nina being Monk’s style, after getting a few acrosses and a couple of downs the A/D device hit me and the puzzle fell apart in front of me. Less than 20 mins today, last monk took rather longer to put it mildly. Thanks John and Monk if you’re watching.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 22:30:37 +0000

I’ve just realised that John was probably being ironic about 18d. Ah well.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:04:16 +0000

Thanks, John, and Monk. One tends to think Nina with Monk with esp reference to ideas involving letters. So I saw the A and D idea (never thought it as being anything else than across/down) and that made it quite an easy puzzle for me esp by comparison with some prev Monk puzzles. Did not fully understand all clues tho before coming here.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:16:14 +0000

Quite easy once the A/D device was spotted, though the subtleties of some clues (e.g. 18d) passed me by.
Got 6a straight away, remembering all those years ago when learning about atmospheric pressure and the physics teacher told us that ANEROID, as in barometer, was derived from the Greek for ‘without liquid’.
‘Ea’ (in the parsing of 7d) is one of the entries in many Scrabble® players’ memorised list of two-letter words.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:06:47 +0000

Thanks, John.

I enjoyed Monk’s puzzle last year based around the structure of the ethane molecule, so was expecting something to be going on with this one.

In fact I was about to give up, but then saw that there were lots of repeated letters and like Lenny twigged the A and D connection. Without that, I don’t think I would have finished. Even with the D&A link (and I agree with you, John, that it must just be down and across) I didn’t find it easy, but it was a good challenge for a Thursday toughie. ANNEXE was my favourite today, although DO OR NAIL also raised a laugh.

PANADOL yesterday; AERO today. We’d best give thanks for the Indy’s relaxed attitude to trademarks and hope that Phi gives us another tomorrow.

By: Lenny

Lenny — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:57:39 +0000

I enjoyed this grid-filling tour de force. Seeing the unfriendly grid, I immediately wrote Nina at the top of my page and underlined it twice. Nevertheless, I was halfway through before I noticed the Across-Down device. After filling in all the outstanding As and Ds the puzzle was not too difficult to finish. What particularly impressed me is that there are not really any very obscure words in the answers.

Answering John’s query about Aero, I can’t say that I have bought one recently but all chocolate bars these days tend to be packed in plastic wrappers rather than foil.

By: Bertandjoyce

Bertandjoyce — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:52:09 +0000

Thanks Thomas99, we crossed on that one so we can stop thinking now.

By: Bertandjoyce

Bertandjoyce — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:50:12 +0000

Thanks John for the blog and Monk for a great devious puzzle. We didn’t think it was as hard as some Thursday puzzles but still a good workout for the grey matter.

We thought that we had understood most of the clues but having checked the blog and Thomas99′s comment we realise that some of Monk’s brilliance was also lost on us! We entered ‘addenda’, first thought it was AD + D within DEAN but then realised that didn’t really work with the cryptic definition so we can’t help anymore at present. Will keep on puzzling!

If it hadn’t been for the D’s we would have struggled with some of the later down clues.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:42:28 +0000

PS. 14 is simpler than it looks – AD plus final letters of “Died in depressed area” oustide E.