Comments on: Independent 7967 / Phi

By: Bertandjoyce

Bertandjoyce — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 14:31:53 +0000

Thanks Thomas99 for providing the explanation. We were busy last night and we completely forgot about adding further clues!
Dormouse- very impressive understanding of the Periodic Table – the only memory I had was of something amusing connected to it!

By: Dormouse

Dormouse — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 12:07:36 +0000

See it now. I could be pedantic and say that is the first 10 elements in order of atomic number. The periodic table is two dimensional (three if you consider the lanthanides and actinides) and the vertical groupings are much more important to a chemist. (Grade 2 A-level chemistry, 1970.) That said, I’m not sure I’d have spotted it if he’d given all the elements in a group instead.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 09:58:05 +0000

Dormouse-
It must be ok to reveal it now:

The across clues (apart from 14a itself) start with the chemical symbols of the first 10 elements of the Periodic Table (14a), in the correct order (H, He, Li, Be, B, C, N, O, F, Ne). A very clever trick by Phi. I should have got it sooner, as I learnt them at school simply by pronouncing them as sort-of words (the first two being just a sort of laugh – h-he – and the next two rows sounding like “Libbeb c’noffny, namgalsipsclar”. That’s as far as I got. Lehrer is more entertaining.)

By: Dormouse

Dormouse — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 09:17:07 +0000

OK, can someone reveal what the theme was. I’m sure I’m missing something obvious.

By: flashling

flashling — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 23:52:00 +0000

Indeed elementary my dear phi, nicely done, must admit I completely missed that during the solve, great stuff, Thanks B&J didn’t need your blog but missed Nina/ghost theme entirely

By: Dormouse

Dormouse — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:30:02 +0000

The two long answers didn’t give much trouble – I’ve read the Conrad and I grew up in the north east and my brother is a Newcastle fan – but the bottom right completely defeated me. There came a point where I realised that staring at the three remaining clues wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Either the puzzles have been harder this week or I’ve been dumber than usual.

By: NealH

NealH — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:09:14 +0000

I’ve been finding Phi puzzles tougher of late and I thought this was no exception. I didn’t get anywhere close to finishing it at lunch time and had to have another go this evening, when it dropped into place reasonably quickly. Unusually, I liked both the football clues. I wasn’t too sure about identifying Bertrand Russell by only his first name, although it’s fairly distinctive – not sure you’d do the same thing with David Hume, for example.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:09:09 +0000

I managed this, but did find it difficult, getting stuck on more than one occasion. A good few I couldn’t parse either, so thank you for the explanations. But a good puzzle, certainly. Can see a few elements scattered around, but I can’t see the pattern, so I shall have to wait for later to be enlightened.

nms and I will have to start a petition to get 25ac expunged from the records …

Thanks to setter and bloggers.

By: Wanderer

Wanderer — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:13:59 +0000

Difficult but extremely enjoyable.

Thank goodness for this site — I would never have spotted the ghost theme but for Phi’s intervention here, and the gentle hints from B&J and T99. It really added to my appreciation of the puzzle.

Excellent. Many thanks to Phi and B&J.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 10:06:01 +0000

Thanks for the nudge, Bertandjoyce – I’ve got it now too! Very impressive, order-wise. I saw that Phi was from the North East and feared it would be all about 25a, in which case I was more or less doomed.