Comments on: Indepedent 8,024 / Radian

By: Dormouse

Dormouse — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 18:16:11 +0000

Well, The Tempest is one of my favourite plays – even went to see a performance in Russian last year – so my complaint is there wasn’t enough references to the play. I must admit some surprise at people saying they didn’t know the quotations; seems to me they were things I’d known since birth.

5/13 took me ages as I’d been working on the anagram being of “fiery trophy” plus ‘a’ for amateur with comical being the indicator. And I just couldn’t think of any words beginning o-y. “Olympic” is hardly obscure at the moment.

15ac was the last in for me, by which time I was at the “I’ll get that word even if it takes me all night” stage and I picked up Chambers and started going through words beginning t-c. Fortunately, that way the answer comes fairly quickly in the search.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 17:15:45 +0000

In cross-referenced/themed puzzles I always try to find the (or one of the) gateway clue(s) first. So I started with 4d which gave me TEMPEST straightaway. Happy me? Well, it was more like “Oh God, it’s Him again”.
But, while indeed it was, I enjoyed the crossword tremendously.

Although I couldn’t parse it when I solved the puzzle today around noon, I think NUTCASE (21ac) was great – almost novel.
And RR, LUDDITE (11ac) was another one I needed your fine blog for. Oh, those cryptic definitions. One doesn’t expect them that often when this setter’s around. A setter who is more focused on constructional devices (in all his – much admired – disguises).

My Clue of the Day is perhaps (because there were more contenders) 5,13 (OLYMPIC TORCH).

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 16:40:34 +0000

Thanks, RatkojaRiku. The typos are the least of our worries – I needed you to explain quite a few today. I said I was ‘themed out’ last week, and with two further themed puzzles in the last two days, I’m looking forward to Dac tomorrow for (I hope) a plain but entertaining crossword without the need to cross-reference clues.

The gateway clue here was gettable (thank you to setter), and although my knowledge of The Tempest is skinny, I knew the top quote and guessed the bottom one; after that it was steady progress, with MAYFLIES my favourite today. Or as one mayfly said to his partner: “What do you mean, ‘Not tonight, darling’?”

By: RatkojaRiku

RatkojaRiku — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:53:41 +0000

Thanks for pointing out the typo, nmsindy – I do my level best, but sometimes things just slip through the net amid the chaos of a working day.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 13:59:11 +0000

Thanks, RR and Radian. My knowledge of the play was pretty sketchy tho I’d heard some of the characters’ names over the years. It was a very enjoyable puzzle in which I eventually was able to word out pretty much everything from the wordplay tho I did check a dict to see what ‘anthropoid’ meant. Never knew Huxley’s book title came from a quote from Shakespeare (27A) nor that Prospero was a magician. Tough puzzle for sure with some good misdirection – favourites FIDELITY BOND, FANLIGHTS, ANIMA. PS one typo – in the 21A explanation, it should be ‘punctuation’ rather than ‘pronunciation’