Comments on: Independent 7970 / Raich

By: Rorschach

Rorschach — Wed, 02 May 2012 01:31:30 +0000

Given that this took me about 20 mins as opposed to the usual hour or two I’d say this was on the easy side…

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:44:01 +0000

Thanks Duncan, great blog again, how will you up the ante now? Even though I lightly put in Biro, the Bronte nina was very soon apparent and I was looking for the names/pseudonyms right away which rather broke this guessing correctly that LHS would be Currer, but a pleasant diversion Raich, shame it was over so quickly.

(I’m not well read as you may remember me saying but I was aged 14 forced to visit Haworth and the parsonage on a school trip, the scars however were finally healed today)

By: Wil Ransome

Wil Ransome — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:22:58 +0000

Thorougly enjoyable. As with apparently all of Raich’s crosswords in the Indy, there is a ghost (?) theme and one can perfectly well solve the puzzle without needing to see it. I find this much more satisfactory than those puzzles where you have to know certain facts and often can’t make progress without resort to Google.

I was slow to see the theme because I can’t read my own writing: the T of TENTACLES looked just like a Y.

By: Cumbrian

Cumbrian — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:06:04 +0000

I completely missed the theme (I blame it on the 13d imbibed whilst solving), was another Biro victim, finally decided on Bell, but didn’t know why (and wouldn’t have known even if I’d spotted the Brontes) until I read Duncan’s wonderful blog. I didn’t know of Roma as travelling people, believing it must have something to do with Romany with the last being NY rather than just N, so a bit of useful education there. Difficult to choose a favourite clue, but 9a made me groan so that’s my prime contender.
Very enjoyable – many thanks to Raich, and again to Duncan

By: Paul B

Paul B — Tue, 01 May 2012 19:58:26 +0000

Ah TESTICLES, PERICLES, SOPHOCLES: where would we be without them?

By: Raich

Raich — Tue, 01 May 2012 19:43:50 +0000

Many thanks, Duncan, for the superb blog and to all for their comments.

Because of the requirements of the theme, in six answers less than half of the letters of the answer were crossed by other answers. In all six cases, these were either thematic words or included one of the thematic perimeter letters. Nonetheless, to be fair to the solver, I tried to make those six clues just a little bit easier – this may have led to the puzzle overall turning out to be on the easy side.

I’ll also admit the alternative of BIRO never crossed my mind at any point. I think tho, as someone commented above, it would not be really have been a cryptic clue to BIRO in the normal sense.

By: Quixote

Quixote — Tue, 01 May 2012 18:22:54 +0000

I am very happy to reciprocate nice comments given that my oft=blogger has produced a pleasing puzzle that I was grateful to reel off after a busy day producing my Indy puzzles for September. ( I wouldn’t have had the energy for certain other setters today!)

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Tue, 01 May 2012 15:25:23 +0000

Dormouse, if you get three in a row tomorrow with Dac, you should buy a lottery ticket …

I did mean to say earlier that I too really liked HALVE.

By: Jean

Jean — Tue, 01 May 2012 15:13:55 +0000

I went wrong with ‘Biro’ too. Then no way to get to epees! Roma was a little obscure!

By: Dormouse

Dormouse — Tue, 01 May 2012 14:08:27 +0000

Well, I totally failed to spot the theme, even though I knew about the Brontes’ pen names being Bell. In fact, although I was sure of the answer to 1d, I couldn’t see how the clue worked. (Bell has turned up as an inventor in a number of puzzles recently, it seems.)

For a millisecond, I thought 5d might be TESTICLES. And EPEES took me a while to see. Apart from that, little difficulty.

Did like the mathematical word play in 11ac and 19ac.

Curiously, yesterday, INNING turned up whilst I was watching a baseball game. Today I was watching a TV programme whilst doing the puzzle that had a character called CHARLOTTE in it.