Comments on: Independent on Sunday 1174/Poins

By: allan_c

allan_c — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 16:47:37 +0000

I got through this without much difficulty, but only because I was doing it on Crossword Solver with frequent use of the check (not cheat!) button.

Got 1/17/14 witout unscrambling the anagram once I got the crossing W and discovered the third word wasn’t ‘two’. And GENERAL didn’t cause any problems; I got it from the wordplay, although I would agree that ‘general’ is a rather loose synonym for ‘public’.

But the parsing of PLACATE was beyond me, and I wasn’t too happy with CLOSE UP either.

By: Pierre

Pierre — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 07:20:13 +0000

Thanks nms for the parsing of CLOSE UP, which I’m sure is what Poins intended. Still not a great clue in my opinion: most speakers would choose CLOSE DOWN for ‘cease operating’; and although ‘close’ is given as a synonym of ‘secret’ in my thesaurus, I’m struggling to think of a sentence where they would be interchangeable. It is only eight o’clock on a Sunday morning though …

By: Al Dente

Al Dente — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 06:13:23 +0000

Thanks Pierre for the usual excellent blog. Had trouble with parsing 26@ myself because I kept thinking of the phrase ‘In Camera’ which is when a case is heard in secret in court, then of close-up being a type of photograph. Like nmsindy’s parsing though much more.

By: flashling

flashling — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 00:06:43 +0000

Ta Pierre and NMS, close up had me stumped as well.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 23:13:08 +0000

I think close = secret and up = in court, Pierre. Thanks to you and Poins.