Comments on: Independent 8053 by Quixote

By: OzBron

OzBron — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 03:23:42 +0000

Apologies for the tardiness, but I think you’ll find that it’s a Greek plural, Kathryn’s Dad (@5)!

By: flashling

flashling — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 23:23:49 +0000

The i is being blogged (occasionally! but I’m trying to help now) at http://idothei.wordpress.com any assistance would be appreciated.

Sorry this looks a bit like a spam link but isn’t meant to be. Phil

By: flashling

flashling — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 23:06:32 +0000

Tricky for a Q. on a Monday as he was in the i, which seems to have a error in the wordplay for 13a, there’s an A missing unless I’m missing something clever. Not the walk in the park in the Indy I was expecting for Quixote on a monday, but thank you Don and NMS.

By: Dormouse

Dormouse — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:43:24 +0000

I, too, found this a bit tough compared to the usual Monday puzzle. Didn’t get much done before heading out for the evening, and couldn’t complete it without some help. 3dn was obvious, once I’d fed the letters into an anagram solver – it was the only word – and it was a word I knew. The singular even turned up in a blog on Phi’s opera themed crossword a few months ago.

6dn was the last one in. I was something of a space nut in the sixties, so I never even considered Neal Armstrong as “first astronaut”.

As to squirrels (Cumbrian @8), when my brother had to pay to get a grey squirrel nest removed from the loft of his house, his view was “Squirrels are rats with good PR.”

By: Cumbrian

Cumbrian — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 20:26:03 +0000

I couldn’t quite finish this without cheating, but some very nice clues – and one or two which passed me by, particularly the clever use of the colon in 12 which I couldn’t parse without the blog. I got stuck on the NE corner and had to reveal 6d, and had the same issue as others with Armstrong being the first astronaut. (For a while I was trying to work Yuri into the answer…..)
The Red Squirrels in our garden are rodents, but would be horrified to be classed as vermin (especially as a protected species) but they might just accept the question mark in 21 as suggesting that not all rodents are vermin.

My favourite clue was, I think, 17 probably because I felt smug for seeing it. (Despicable, I know….)

Thanks for the puzzle and the blog.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 16:42:09 +0000

Ah yes, people seemingly from somewhere opining on crossword websites. O me. But excellent historical information from Allan C and Prolixic today! So thanks to them both.

I reached a high enjoyment peak with this one, which features some very nice work from daughters having painters in (3). On the incredibly shallow, so much so as to be almost meaningless, downslope, I suppose I sympathise vaguely with anyone having to find what for some would have been an unknown word via an anagram.

But as I say: this puzzle is up here: not down there. I am from Hampshire.

By: Quixote

Quixote — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:04:32 +0000

Thanks — incidentally I was criticised in The Times last week for being too classical and not scientific enough by a man seemingly from Dorset. I believe in cultural breadth but of course you can’t get everything into one puzzle!

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 14:35:53 +0000

Thanks, nms.

Yes, breezed through most of this one, but got stuck on the last three or four. Managed to get ICOSOHEDRA once I’d realised that it would be a Latin plural. I liked EVER-CHANGING and TIME-CONSUMING. Less keen on BEARINGS – clearly they are part of a machine, but there are lots of other parts too!

The Neil Armstrong mini-error passed me by – once I’d got K as the first letter I just stuck it in.

Thanks to Quixote for a pleasing start to the week – might have a flirt with his recycled one in the i later on this evening.

By: Quixote

Quixote — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 13:38:53 +0000

Thanks one and all. Apologies for Neil Armstrong lapse — firdt asronaut on moon or moon-walker maybe. mybe taht can be corrected before my work is repeated in i (where another of my unrepaid-for oldies appears today!).

By: Prolixic

Prolixic — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 12:08:18 +0000

An enjoyable crossword from Quixote. 3d did not cause me any problems.

My only query was in relation to 6d and the designation of Neil Armstrong as “first astronaut”. The first man in space was Yuri Gagarin. Even allowing for him being a cosmonaut, the first astronaut (American) in space was Alan Shepherd. At a pinch, you could describe Neil as the leading (first) astronaut. However, given Don’s meticulous cluing and checking of facts, I must be missing something obvious!