Independent 8498 / Donk

45 comments on “Independent 8498 / Donk”

1. Like you, I thought I was in Another Place when I first looked at the clues (but then I saw ‘shit’, which meant I had in fact selected the right puzzle). This is clever, and I mean that in a complimentary rather than a condescending way. It made for a slightly bizarre solving experience: having sorted out one solution, you had to go back and look at the clue in an entirely different way to get your second answer. Which made it tough.

   And yes, a couple of the acrosses looked a bit strained, but nothing outrageous; and I think Donk has been gentle with the down clues, giving a bit of help with the crossers.

   I hope Harry does something useful with that wood at 17dn, but manages not to end up with a problem downstairs.

   Thanks all three.

2. This was brilliant!

3. Donk has set the bar so high out seems unlikely the rest of us setters will be able to jump over it! Even attempting to qualify what this crossword does will fall miserably short of the mark. Hats off, youn man! And despite the cryptic antics, still fun to complete.

4. Very clever indeed. I was left with 15ac, 16dn, and 18ac, which meant I still had no checkers for 16dn. I then convinced myself the answer was “pie”, justified as a triple definition of a bird, something gobbled, and pie(r). I then couldn’t solve the other two (obviously), used the check button, then decided to use aids to help with 18ac. Once I had ASPECT (I should definitely have seen the anagram) it was easy to see the wordplay for ROC at 16dn, and then HARE was my LOI. Hats off to Donk for this one.

5. I parsed 9a slightly differently: Compiler’s start = C then anag. (“cryptic”) of echo + (h)i(s). I’m now not sure which Donk intended.

   By and large I thought the across clues were amazingly good, justifying the ambitious overall scheme. I remember Araucaria did a pair of identical clues with different answers not that long ago but this is something else! The main obstacle for me was in fact getting one of the downs wrong. I immediately plumped for “Pie” for 16d – “bird that’s gobbled” meaning simultaneously pie as in magpie and pie the food, and “Brighton? All but the tail” meaning pie(r). It seems silly now but it took me a long time to realise it was wrong. (One of the crossers, HARE, was pretty tough, but the other, ASPECT, finally set me straight.)

6. Cross posting with Andy B @4 – glad I’m not alone!

7. Brilliant. When I first got into cryptics about 10 years ago I used to love the wit and invention of Virgilius. This was up there. Well done Sir.

8. Can only really echo everyone else’s compliments. Quite a feat, and while in lesser hands the whole thing could have become quite strained, it never did. As KD notes, having to parse each clue two ways was quite the workout, and that’s no bad thing. Some out-loud chuckles in there too.

9. Just to make this a marmite puzzle I am going to be the first in the loathe it camp. I start off on the down clues and happily solved eight of them, but maybe I’m old fashioned but I find that I groan when I see something out of the ordinary and although I think I’m fairly liberal and use words like shit, and worse in irritation I am uncomfortable seeing them written down. Maybe I’m just getting old, and cosequently sensitive and grumpy! I’m sure from the comments that this was a very clever puzzle. Actually it may be just grumpiness as I’ve spent the last hour on the phone to Npower getting nowhere, I hope you never end up dealing with them.
   Always enjoy Dac’s tight and clear clueing

10. pennes@9 – when I first met this crossword the s word was shown as s**t which I preferred to seeing the whole word in print.

    Thanks to B&J for the excellent explanations and to Donk for making brain work fun!

11. A magnificent technical achievement, this. I can tell you from first hand experience how difficult it is to write just one clue with two possible answers; to do so to this extent takes the difficulty level off the scale (as Donk has said elsewhere – “Never again!”).
    I must also offer some sympathy. The loss of symmetry (centre horizontal) must have been intensely frustrating. Thankfully it matters not a jot in terms of solving pleasure, of which there was plenty.

12. Wonderful crossword though initally very daunting. I read9 across as ‘c’ the start of compiler and cryptic the anagrind for ‘echo’.

13. From a technical viewpoint i bet donk spent ages trying not to get the asymmetry but wow god help if he ever sets alphabet jigsaws or inquistors.

    Ideally the “this crossword” row should have had a Nina fulfilling counterpart so only 9.9/10 from this judge 🙂

    Thanks B&J I know I suffer from double vision but this must have caused a few anxious moments.

14. Turns out the loathe it camp has only one inhabitant – is that enough to be called a camp? 😉

    These sums at the bottom of the post are getting harder…

15. My last one was:

    What is sum n=1 to infinity n^2/(n^4+1)?

16. Well, the answer is 42, obviously, Rorschach, but we’ll be in trouble with Gaufrid for going off-topic soon. More marmite lovers than haters, which I think is apposite.

17. Wow! Incredible. Am very impressed with this ingeneous puzzle. And it was fun to solve too! 10/10 from me. Thanks to Donk and to bertandjoyce for the review.

18. Brilliant!

19. Another marmite lover here – I got a bit stuck on the top right having entered BURR (as in the noisy burr you hear in a busy room) instead of STIR, but the whole concept was just so much fun I didn’t mind at all!

20. Very, very cool!

21. Late to the party today – blogging the Guardian Paul and then out all day, so it’s practically all been said.

    Thanks to all three – a brilliant combo!

    Hi Rorschach @14: perhaps a bit early yet – there’s often the rogue commenter who comes in when everyone else has gone to bed – but I reckon a sad solver in a one-man tent could be called a camp? I know where I’d rather be! 😉

22. I should imagine this one was a mare to set, and I wonder if Donk got the double-clues together before arranging the grid? That would explain the asymmetry, or be one way to explain it. I don’t mind it anyway, having done the same sort of thing myself at least twice so as to get something in.

    A bloody good wheeze this, great technically, up there with the best, and a big plus for the Indy ethos.

23. Good evening!

    I’m absolutely overwhelmed with all the comments here! It was certainly a bit of a fiend to get to grips with and I had to use a few devices I wouldn’t normally. Apologies for any strained wordplay, surfaces, etc. I’m hoping the overall effect of the puzzle lets me off the hook a little.

    K’s D: You’re absolutely spot on about the down clues – the “gimmick” was the across clues so I thought it’d be helpful to get plenty of crossers in early.

    Herb: You’ve nailed my intended parsing of 9a. Compiler’s start = C, then an anagram of ECHO + I

    Pennes: Sorry it wasn’t up your street. As crypticsue says, the crossword was originally submitted with ‘s**t’

    As for the asymmetry, this was actually deliberate! Given that I was cluing across the middle row, symmetry would have forced the pair of clues to have the same letter count. I wanted to avoid that issue as you wouldn’t know where the put either answer if you’d only solved one!

    Thanks again for all your comments and Happy New Year!

    All the best,
    Donk

24. Didn’t actually loathe it, but I can’t say I enjoyed it either. Although I’ll agree that the concept was clever, solving the clues themselves didn’t really excite me and in the end there were about half a dozen I couldn’t get.

25. Just when you think you’ve seen it all in crosswordland, there’s Donk with a stunner of a crossword.

    I started this one just before midnight (yesterday), then got a long-distance friend on the telephone with whom I dived into the early hours to finish the crossword. We were completely absorbed by it, unfortunately (for me, as I had to wake up again at 7am) forgetting about the time.

    We didn’t notice the asymmetry and, if we had seen it, couldn’t possibly be bothered either.

    I/We like to join the vast majority today.
    Splendid work, Donk!

26. Donk, had I ten thousand hats, I would take them all off to you and still be in your debt. This was no mere crossword but a thing of transcendent beauty; even as I marvelled my way through it, I sighed with sadness that I would never see its like again. When I saw the impossible feature I expected some strained readings, yet every one is smooth as clockwork. And with all that you managed to work in a bit of humorous self-deprecation at 21/23, paint a picture of a streetwise and canny shadow chancellor at 28/29, and most miraculously of all to open with a self-referential allusion to the doubled clues at 7/9.

    Making all the pairs clued alike different lengths was also a very nice touch.

    I’m going out tomorrow to buy more hats.

27. By the way, 21/23 remind me somewhat of my favourite clue of all time, by the much-missed Fidelio of the Grauniad:

    Anagram of this carp (4)

    Of course the difference is that unlike Donk’s clue, Fidelio’s does not involve – either in construction or solution – any word that would be out of place in a Victorian drawing-room. (You didn’t think it did, did you? Fie! what a filthy mind you must have!)

    I wish I knew more of Fidelio’s story. It is a matter of record that he composed crosswords from prison, as his operatic name suggests, and as someone told the story to me, he was a career criminal who would every now and then be let out, whereupon there would be no more Fidelio crosswords till they nabbed him for something else. Alas, I suspect this version is too good to be true. Still, I like to imagine a distraught crossword editor on the phone to the police: “Are you sure you haven’t got anything else on him?”

28. Very nice indeed. I’m not keen on clever schemes so I just sort of feared as I went along that the cluing might pay a price for it – but in the event it didn’t at all – so quite an achievement.

    Seriously – does anyone really care about grid symmetry. It’s just a red herring thrown in by the usual culprit. I seem to recall a Paul puzzle not long back with a minor departure from symmetry – as did the very first G puzzle ever printed. A set of nifty clues giving intersecting answers where each successive answer helps you with the next and I’m happy.

    Prolly the days of hot lead printing and standard sets of grids locked in the symmetry thing. It’s not really needed any longer. No point in going wild but equally no point in being shackled to it.

    Do the moaners and groaners seriously audit the grid for symmetry before or after solving the puzzle. Please tell me nobody’s that pedantic.

29. At the risk of being ostracised for not towing the party line here: though this was indeed a very cleverly constructed crossword and I admire the technical skill in its construction, like Dormouse @24 I didn’t especially enjoy solving it.

    That is not so say I disliked it, I just got the feeling that the clues and definitions were being strained a bit to fit the form.

    But thanks anyway Donk, and keep up the good work!

30. From a solving point of view it’s completely irrelevant, but a symmetrical grid is aesthetically pleasing; yet even that consideration is questionable as it assumes everyone thinks symmetry looks nicer than asymmetry, which of course may not always be true.
    The main point of symmetry is that it’s one of the technical requirements of setting. Take it away, and you remove one of the major skills of grid construction, and clue-writing. Many setters will pepper a grid with answers to a small number of pre-prepared clues, and beyond that the challenge is to write good clues to answers which are forced into the grid through lack of alternatives. Remove symmetry and that demand is greatly reduced and it will take far less skill to produce an ostensibly good crossword. Most solvers would, I think, like to know that setters have had to put the graft in to write a high quality puzzle.
    This puzzle by Donk is definitely an exception, and his explanation for the asymmetry is actually rather wonderful – it’s a brilliant and thoughtful touch.

31. I completely agree with you Anax about symmetry in grids, such restrictions bring on creativity. I would compare this with poetry (or classical music), writing within a formal structure (and making it seem natural) requires a higher talent than expressing the same in anything-goes prose.

    I don’t have any issue with Donk’s case here, symmetry is broken in a precise manner for a specific reason.

32. This definitely wasn’t a s**t crossword. Solvers may be interested to know that the Indy and i have different rules on asterisks, possibly reflecting different editors. The i policy is to use asterisks, but in the more grown-up Indy although writers are requested not to use four-letter words unless absolutely necessary, the full form of the word is preferred. As giving ‘s**t’ as the fodder would technically be an implied anagram this was a no-brainer for me, but I apologise for Donk being a pottymouth if it caused offence.

33. Thanks to everyone for the comments – in particular Eimi and Donk. Also, thanks Anax for your comments about the symmetry issue with which we wholeheartedly agree. As a ‘former’ mathematician, Joyce really likes patterns and symmetry but in this case, neither of us even noticed the asymmetry!

34. Hear hear. I think a certain individual, as ever, was spoiling for a fight, in this case where no-one had actually expressed a negative opinion about asymmetry. Anax on the matter was a far more entertaining and educative read, managing without being nasty to put said individual firmly in his place.

    As to broken symmetry, well: it certainly seems to have added weight, or mass anyway, to some scientists’ arguments.

35. @anax #30

    “one of the technical requirements of setting”

    No it isn’t. It’s one of many arbitrary “rules” imposed without justification by Ximenes. As well as the example I gave above I have noticed a few recent barred grid puzzles whose grids are not symmetrical.

    If setters can write better puzzles either without symmetry then let them.

    Let a million flowers bloom – I don’t care do be told what wordgames I may or may not play by that guy – nor anyone else.

36. @#34

    Far from “spoiling for a fight” my comments here are nearly all made in defence of puzzles and clues. Setters (with one or two exceptions) are not stupid and they (along with their editors and test solvers) have generally put quite a bit of thought into the work they produce.

    Why setters should come onto these threads to attack the works of their “colleagues” begs (sic) rather a lot of questions.

37. I hope there’s no misinterpretation of my motives here. A question was raised about the requirement for symmetry and I merely offered my thoughts on why symmetry is standard.
    It’s true that asymmetry is a regular feature of barred thematics, but these are an entirely different animal. It’s often the case that thematic grid material is so complex that retaining symmetry makes the task impossible. Your standard 225, even with thematic content, is far more straightforward, and remember that symmetry is not imposed by the setters – it comes from stock grids and/or editorial policy.
    Is it therefore a necessity? Well, perhaps not. But my feeling is that if setters were offered the freedom to use asymmetrical grids the vast majority would refuse on the grounds that it dilutes the art of setting which, often, is as much about grid construction as clue-writing.
    Personal point of view? I’d never set an asymmetric grid unless, like Donk, I had a very specific reason for doing so.

38. Ah yes Swaggers, you made a boo-boo with your usage of ‘begs the question’ a while back, and you’re still sore. Fine, but not here, old chap.

    And ‘setters attacking their colleagues’? What planet are you on, baby.

39. We’re hoping that any more comments are about this superb crossword. Please don’t spoil the thread folks!

40. Hey, great puzzle. I’m late to the party after a trip overseas, but I feel it’s worth just saying how good this, standing out a ways from the general ‘fare’, as denizens are wont to put it sometimes.

    I’m siding with Anax, too, as I don’t think anyone wanted to say anything negative here. It’s just that, hey, you get idiots on threads, and they’re allowed their say. Pity, and that’s you JS.

41. http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/beg-the-question

    3: to suggest that a question needs to be asked

    Ah bootikins – welcome home.

    No argument to run but you pop in out of the blue to call me an idiot. No doubt Paul B will appreciate your support now that his pal Rowland, who also consistently agreed with him, has gone off to an ashram. They’re places folk go to to consider the meaning of existence.

42. That’s enough folks….. please.

43. I realise that nobody will still be reading this blog, as it’s now Jan 14th. But I only came across this masterpiece today, and out of respect I feel compelled to at least come on here and say: “Wow!, Donk, that was a work of art. The more I look back over it, the more beautiful things I see! Congratulations, and thank you.”

    The one downside is that I may now have to give up on my dream of becoming a setter! 🙂

44. I’m a rare visitor here but like Limeni above, even if late, I had to come on to declare how brilliant I thought this crossword was. Folks have been raving about it for a week so I eventually downloaded the necessary to acquire it. Thanks to Bertandjoyce too – I finished it but had too many that I couldn’t parse properly. I have 4 DIY crosswords on the go but young Donk, a third of my age, has knocked the stuffing out of me (in an awesome way – I mean it as a complement).
    Fantastic.

45. We’re really pleased to read the last two comments from Limeni and Brigster!

    Thanks for dropping by and for your comments on Donk’s wonderful crossword!

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