Comments on: Independent Crossword 8172 by Tyrus (Saturday prize puzzle 22-12-2012)

By: twencelas

twencelas — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 11:31:14 +0000

Ewwo – I agree but Chambers has the following entry:
G or G.
abbrev: Gabon (IVR); Gauss; German (as in G-agents below); giga-; good; gourde; Government (as in G-man below); grand (1000 dollars); Group of (as in G5, etc below).

G is thus valid as an abbreviation for a 1000.

By: ewwo

ewwo — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 10:50:56 +0000

Thanks for the nice blog and puzzle. It’s a bit late I know, but I can see M (Roman) and k (kilo) for thousand. But responding to MikeC why G? To me as a scientist, G can only be Giga, ie a billion, not a thousand. I guess you are thinking G for grand but that seems obscure to me.

By: Tyrus

Tyrus — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 13:47:38 +0000

Many thanks to twencelas for the blog and to others for their comments.

Re 13a H for home and L for lost are football abbreviations , as is T for town in 2dn. These appear often in newspapers so I think they’re fair game.

I think MANKIER is probably more obvious for 21a as it’s a more general term than MANGIER but apologies for the confusion.

Think next puzzle’s a bit easier. Happy New Year to all.

By: flashling

flashling — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 22:08:06 +0000

Thanks Tw and Tyrus, was too hard in the end, but fun enough for the bits I did, I blame the Christmas shopping…

By: MikeC

MikeC — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 15:15:39 +0000

Thanks twenceslas and Tyrus. A good challenge, with some very neat devices. I couldn’t parse 3d, either. For 21a, I had MANGIER, which I suggest is equally valid (either G or K for 1000).

By: allan_c

allan_c — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 14:58:50 +0000

Certainly a challenge but I got there in the end, though I needed the blog to understand some of the clues, so thanks Tyrus and Twencelas.

A small quibble about 2dn in that I’d not come across ‘t’ as an abbreviation for ‘town’ – it’s not in Chambers (1998) or Collins (2006), although the answer was obvious.

To the general knowledge touches might be added Asgard and Barnet – although both are in Collins, and Asgard in Chambers.

By: Dormouse

Dormouse — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 13:18:35 +0000

No comments yet? I found this incredibly hard going. Started on the train last Saturday on the way to visiting family and barely scratched the surface. Then, because of family gatherings, I had little chance to look at it again till Thursday when I got all but five clues. Those haircuts gave me a problem, never heard of “En brosse” and didn’t know there was a Tony Curtis hairstyle. And I couldn’t for the life of me see why 3dn was “On the job” so thanks for explaining that. And 9ac did make me smile.