Comments on: Independent 8104 / Klingsor

By: Wil Ransome

Wil Ransome — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 10:00:11 +0000

I detected a hint of lukewarmness about some (not all) of these comments. It seems to me that Klingsor is to be congratulated on a very high-class construction. Really good I thought.

By: Bertandjoyce

Bertandjoyce — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 07:40:22 +0000

This was one of those occassions when we were really thankful for 225. We were too tired last night to finish it but even with a fresh mind or minds to it this morning we still couldn’t parse 13ac, 14d and 21ac.

Thanks Duncan.

Also thanks to Klingsor – we thought it was going to be one of your easier ones when we started!!

By: Klingsor

Klingsor — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 20:10:45 +0000

Thanks for the blog Duncan and also to those who commented. Glad you all enjoyed it!

By: Paul B

Paul B — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:46:38 +0000

As up own bum, forgot to say thanks to m’colleague Klingsor for another excellent piece. Many thanks to Duncan too – for another top-class blog.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:44:52 +0000

They’re unfair, whether we like them or not.

I think I like some of them very much, but would never do one myself. Well, not a whole one anyway. Azed’s example is excusable in my view, as solvers, or at least solvers with a rudimentary knowledge of Greek, will not be faced with looking for some synonym or other: as Phil’s example shows, the cryptic element in such a clue can be worse than useless, and an unnecessary extra pain.

On another level, anagrams involving what we might see as indirect single-letter indication are extremely common.

By: flashling

flashling — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 14:08:21 +0000

I struggled a bit in places, must be said, personally I’m ambivolent to indirect anagrams, remember one from over 20 years ago in the G – Bird flying to asian city (Ousel/Seoul) but I know some folks loathe them. Ta Klingsor and Duncan

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 14:02:35 +0000

Clarification of 5: In the last paragraph, the Greek letter pi showed correctly in the preview, but has come out as a question mark in the published version.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 14:01:03 +0000

nms@4 re 13ac: I certainly did not find this clue unsatisfactory in any way and am happy to make that clear.

The question then arises as to the meaning of the phrase “indirect anagram”. When I searched for the phrase on Bing, the first page gave a link to a comment of mine from the Guardian website, made in February 2011, in which I gave the definition as follows: “For clarification, an indirect anagram is where you have to replace a word or phrase by a synonym before making the anagram.”

Clearly, today’s 13ac does not meet that definition, and it is the requirement to make an anagram of a synonym that makes me feel that indirect anagrams are unsatisfactory, but I would now extend the technical definition of “indirect anagram” to anything in which the letters of the anagram fodder do not appear explicitly in the clue. This means that to me a clue can technically be an indirect anagram without being in any way objectionable. This change of view was almost certaintly prompted (at least in part) by reading the following in the Azed slip archive, which can be linked from this site and was on the slip for Azed 75:

Finally, I am accused of perpetrating an indirect anagram with my clue to MORONIC in a recent puzzle: ‘Stupid, getting what comes before pi wrong’. Strictly speaking, my accuser is right. The solver has to determine which letter precedes ? in the Greek alphabet and form an anagram of it to find a word meaning ‘stupid’. Since, however, there is only one letter which does precede it and this is easily discoverable if not known, I regard this as permissible. ‘Stupid getting omicron wrong’ would have been too easy (and incidentally nonsensical); ‘Stupid getting Greek letter wrong’ would have constituted an indirect anagram, and you can rest assured that I would never have used it.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 12:58:44 +0000

Thanks, Klingsor, for a puzzle that I found of about average Indy difficulty and Duncan for the so informative blog as usual. Favourite clues ILL-BRED, EXECUTIVE, ARCHIVE. Re Comment #2 about 13A, I’m not sure it’s correct to describe that as an indirect anagram. M halved leads, as you say, precisely to D (in Roman numerals). An indirect anagram (generally unfair IMHO, being a ‘clue to a clue’) usually means that a synonym of the word to be anagrammed appears in the clue.

By: rowland

rowland — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 12:39:16 +0000

Computer dating for me, though &lit-critters everywhere will be in session. A good puzzle, but with a few idiosyncrasies chucked to annoy Times solvers!

I’m away for a business meeting in Spain for the rest of the week, so let me wish you all a lovely weekend. Thanks to Duncan for his cistomary brilliance, and Klingsor too.

Cheers
Rowly.