Comments on: Independent 7977 / Dac

By: NealH

NealH — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:11:24 +0000

It dawns on me that if you can clue an asteroid can be clued as a “space traveller”, then so could planet Earth and anything on it, but I’m probably being a bit over-literal.

I found this a bit tougher than the usual DAC and made a very slow start. In the end the only one I had to resort to help with was sortilege – annoyingly I thought of sortie but was so fixated by the idea it was a word for trip shortened by one letter that I failed to notice you could put the full word around gel< to get the answer.

By: Dormouse

Dormouse — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:00:59 +0000

Well, better than yesterday, nearly completed it. Managed to put in BEVERAGE for 8d, which stymied me for 5ac.

14ac definitely my favourite.

No trouble with 14d as there is a Ravel opera called L’enfant et les sortilèges, to a libretto by Colette.

By: Bamberger

Bamberger — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:13:42 +0000

I decided to print out one xword for the journey to work. On the Grauniad site the comments suggested it was tough and I’m afraid Lorenso in the FT is too hard for me -so the Indie it was. I have solved a Dac unaided but gosh I found this tough and only solved 6 clues. Of course if I’d solved more I might have got more simply because I would have had more checking letters.
Only unknowns were rangeland, sortilege and pas seul but I thought 12d was fiendish, 5a was very tough and 24a tough.
The only one I was really kicking myself about was 26a -knew it was an anagram but no matter how I wrote the letters out, it just wouldn’t reveal itself.
Thanks for the blog.

By: Bertandjoyce

Bertandjoyce — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:19:17 +0000

Crypticsue@2 We have always done the crossword together and often find that one of us gets the answer whilst the other one works out why! We just fight over who gets the pen!

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:10:04 +0000

Great puzzle and blog, thanks, Dac and B&J. Favourites PROS AND CONS, PASCAL, BRETON. Was slowed a bit by first guessing PAST MASTERS for 12D…

By: Jean

Jean — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:34:33 +0000

Got stuck on sortilege – never heard of it. We don’t do it in Shropshire anyway.

By: crypticsue

crypticsue — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:21:39 +0000

Nice puzzle, nice blog, thanks to all.

Do tell B&J, do you each have a grid and then compare notes when you are stuck or solve one crosword between you?

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Wed, 09 May 2012 09:26:26 +0000

Nice blog, thanks both.

Put in DIRE STRAITS after a bit, but couldn’t quite understand the cryptic bit so thanks for that. I’m partial to a bit of Dire Straits myself as it goes; my favourite track is the hauntingly melancholic ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

Enjoyed SALAD DRESSING and also BRETON, which I think just about works, although many Bretons would consider themselves Breton first and French second. On the French theme, I thought PASCAL (my last one in) clued as ‘clever thinker’ was a bit random, and the French letter reference made me think of a number of cases where what we do in French, the French do in English. Filer à l’anglaise is to take French leave, for example. French letter for condom is une capote anglaise (literally an English cloak); and while we (rather old-fashionedly now) call syphilis the French disease, for them it’s la maladie anglaise. Although of course judicious use of the former might prevent you contracting the latter.

That’s enough random stuff. Thank you to Dac for the usual excellent puzzle.