Comments on: Independent 8117/Phi

By: Bertandjoyce

Bertandjoyce — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 08:22:55 +0000

We were busy yesterday and late home so only got around to solving this before breakfast.

Joyce had head of ranunculus as the buttercup but it wasn’t until a few checking letters were in that the plural came to mind!

We weren’t familiar with the various themed clues but we could almost guess what some of them would be!

Thanks Phi and John – sorry to see so few comments on the blog again.

By: flashling

flashling — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 20:56:52 +0000

beaten by a plant just ny luck, as Neal said, I didnt know it and couldnt correctly guess it on t’train. Nice little theme Phi was half expecting to see some spectacular failures in there ut I guess they’d be lesss landers as crashers.

Ta John for yet another strangely quiet blog.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:38:12 +0000

Thanks John. I agree with Neal: a good example of a themed puzzle that’s solvable without resort to lots of online stuff. Also one where a little bit of knowledge is a helpful thing: knowing Phi’s interest in the stuff above our heads meant that once I’d got MARS I could have a stab at LANDER; and then the gateway clues told you to be looking for the names of the various craft. Luckily these were not too obscure, being for the most part everyday words.

Fine puzzle, thank you to Phi for this one.

By: NealH

NealH — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:39:22 +0000

A nice example of how to include a theme without creating a puzzle that’s irritating and difficult to solve. I got mars as my first clue but it took a lot longer to get lander – kept thinking of all sorts of alternatives like “Mars probe” or “Mars rocket”. Ranunculi was a bit of a struggle if you hadn’t heard of it, since the anagram could be arranged in lots of different ways.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 12:52:05 +0000

Thanks, John, and Phi. Though I solved both MARS and LANDER straightway, it was not until I’d the puzzle almost finished that I made the connection – amazingly. Excellent as always – my favourite clues were CASSANDRA and GREEK. Not sure, John, if Manxmen would lose tails, tho the cats are another matter.

By: allan_c

allan_c — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:28:32 +0000

All fairly straightforward, although I too struggled with the parsing of LANDER.

SOJOURNER was actually a robotic rover landed as part of the bigger Pathfinder spacecraft.

Thanks, Phi and John.