Comments on: Independent 8217/Eimi

By: eimi

eimi — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:25:32 +0000

Thanks John and all the kind commenters. A whole lotta love to you.

I was going to put a definition to 15A then thought it worked as an &lit, as crooks are only type of jail bird, along with rapists, murderers, etc.

By: Bertandjoyce

Bertandjoyce — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 20:16:03 +0000

Firstly, Happy Birthday to K’sD!

Enjoyable puzzle with lots of love…….. to Eimi, John and everyone else.

By: NealH

NealH — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:15:19 +0000

My offerings for Tatum were O’Neal and Channing Tatum – Art never entered my head until I guessed the answer. Lack of knowledge did hamper me in the SW corner – I was stuck for ages until I eventually guessed wavy navy, which I’d vaguely heard of. 19 down completely stumped me for a long time because with ??v?l?, I just could not get out of my head the idea that the vol was appearing in the middle of the word, even though it was impossible to read the clue that way. It was very annoying when the answer turned out to be so ridiculously simple. An enjoyable and challenging puzzle, I thought.

By: allan_c

allan_c — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 17:58:58 +0000

Am I the only one to have immediately thought ‘Art’ for ‘Tatum’?

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:15:04 +0000

Thanks, John. Yes, a bit of light-hearted fun for V-day with a cleverly constructed puzzle, acceptable even to a curmudgeon like me who has to share his birthday with all the lovie-dovies. I was another one who couldn’t see the Tatum bit, but I managed ACARPOUS and guessed WAVY NAVY.

Nice puzzle from eimi – thank you to him.

[Moderately interesting V-day fact that I heard on the radio today. In olden times, young people used to pick a name from a bowl to choose their Valentine, and used to pin the piece of paper with the name on to their sleeve for the day. Which is why we still say 'he wears his heart on his sleeve'.]

By: cumbrian

cumbrian — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:42:53 +0000

I’d never come across ACARPOUS, nor heard of the Wavy Navy, nor Rollo, nor even Frank Chacksfield, and I also fell into the trap of thinking of Tatum as Ryan’s little girl rather than the musician (how easy it is for the brain to lock onto the misdirection – acting, in this case – and ignore other possibilities). However, I completed the puzzle as my “unknowns” could all be derived from the excellent clues, so many thanks to Eimi for the puzzle. Big thanks also to John; I needed the blog to explain some, and the Duh! moment when I realised Tatum was Art. I’m still not 100% happy with CROOKS though.

By: crypticsue

crypticsue — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 12:38:46 +0000

Lovely themed puzzle, thank you Eimi. Thanks to John too – particularly for the Tatum explanation.

By: flashling

flashling — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 11:08:19 +0000

Thanks for explaining the Tatum bit John, went over my head on the train this morning, lovely stuff Eimi even if the device did make it generally a lot easier.