Comments on: Independent 8008 / Morph

By: duncanshiell

duncanshiell — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 18:18:32 +0000

Thomas99 @ 17

Thanks for the comment. In the first draft of this blog I had a couple of sentences explaining why I didn’t think the clue related to the company Apple, mainly because I thought the capital letter was too obvious and therefore the clue had to relate to apple with a lower case. After a bit of thought I took those sentences out because I had convinced myself of the Garden of Eden reference. Also, with tongue firmly in cheek, I thought that Apple would sue if somebody suggested that they were a con!

I see that Morph has confirmed your interpretation of the clue, so clearly I have backed the wrong horse here. Sorry!

By: Morph

Morph — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 14:43:02 +0000

Thanks for the blog, Duncan, and all the comments, I’m glad most of you liked it, and apologies to those for whom the theme and a few forcedly obscure words spoiled things.
I know a lot of people aren’t keen on “state” in clues to indicate, as K’s D says, any one of 50 two-word abbreviations – with alternative 3-word versions for many. So the idea here was that it’s not any old state because the paired clues help identify them.
The gridfill was indeed a bugger, with a dozen abandoned attempts before I got there.
Thomas99 is right about ICON – the misdirection only slightly undermined by the need, in fairness, to capitalise Apple.
Oh, and K’s D, isn’t “knickers”, “peed” and “at it” smut enough? (No, I thought not!)

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 10:11:35 +0000

I’ve just noticed something rather odd – the explanation of 23a doesn’t actually mention Apple the company, i.e. the reference to ipads, ipods, imacs etc., which gives us the i-Con parsing. The surface is probably meant to make us think of the Garden of Eden as a mild misdirection, which I don’t think I really noticed because of the capital A. (Actually the apple, or fruit as it says in Genesis, does the opposite of deceive – it gives knowledge – although the serpent does deceive Eve about it, I suppose, so that could be the “apple’s deception”.)

By: flashling

flashling — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 23:17:44 +0000

Bleeding hard with several how the hell does this clue work moments until the PDM. Well thursday crosswords are usually tough and expected to be so.
Thanks Duncan and morph. More of the same please.

By: Rorschach

Rorschach — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 23:06:11 +0000

What an incredible puzzle – a bizarre experience solving as the enjoyment increased exponentially from the beginning. As many said, easyish in places but the final result was fantastic! Thanks both.

By: Bertandjoyce

Bertandjoyce — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 22:12:52 +0000

What an achievement! We had difficulty getting started although 8d was the first one in. It still took a while to get some of the down clues which then enabled us to make the connections in the across ones. Once we had established this some of the answers came almost a bit too quickly although we then spent ages parsing them!

We don’t think there has been a Morph puzzle that we haven’t enjoyed and this one kept up the standard. Another variation of thematic puzzles which is a new one on us.

Thanks Morph for the late evening’s entertainment and Duncan for the blog. We trust that you are enjoying the trip to Sweden in between the blogging!

By: Lancastrian Bluenose

Lancastrian Bluenose — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 20:55:53 +0000

Quite an enjoyable crossword although I didn’t quite get all the state links.

By: Dormouse

Dormouse — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 17:30:23 +0000

This was very much a Goldilocks puzzle for me – neither too difficult nor too easy. Needed Chambers for 2 and 20dn, neither of which I knew. I also liked 1dn, 21ac, 14dn and 26ac, but I guess I’m just childish.

By: duncanshiell

duncanshiell — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 13:11:07 +0000

William @ 5

I now see what you mean – the mistake was mine, I checked both the Guardian and Independent boxes when I posted the blog. I have now removed the puzzle from the Guardian area.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:25:56 +0000

Yes, it was an incredible achievement to construct this grid. A grid that looks perfectly normal, is (I think) symmetrical as usual has every across row containing (a) a word that can be linked to a US State and (b) the two-letter abbrev for that State in the second answer in the row. This made the puzzle very hard for sure, and I really struggled before seeing the idea with Indiana Jones followed by the clinching Virginia creeper. After that I was just amazed and all the clues I struggled with (almost to the point of giving up) became clear. Thanks, Morph, and Duncan of course (you explained a few I did not fully understand).