Independent 8377 / Kairos

22 comments on “Independent 8377 / Kairos”

1. I also had RELIEVO, which explains why I couldn’t get the “congratulations!” message on-line. I would say RILIEVO is a very rarely used variant. A pity the clue included “relief” as it is the same word as, and looks strikingly similar to, the answer in a different language, the Italian word, which is spelled “relievo”; so not clear how the variant came into existence.

   Also smiled at NAMIBIA and liked ARPEGGIO.

   I have not seen ENERVATE as an adjective, the sense in which it is used here, and it is not noted as such in either of my dictionaries.

   Thanks to duncanshiell and Kairos (new to me).

   Hope I’ll be able to bear some of the puns I feel coming.

2. Exactly, Duncan! Where is POOH? I want my money back, please. Or I might just have to grin and bear it …

   I’m used to the more gentle slopes of Kairos’ IoS puzzles, so this one was certainly more of a challenge, even once I’d twigged the (delightful) theme. BUNGLE was the only bear I hadn’t come across, but the clueing made it obvious once there were some crossers.

   I thought NAMIBIA was funny too.

   Thanks to Kairos for the daily debut – look forward to more of these.

3. The bear theme helped me a lot and I was able to complete this with help from Wikipedia etc to confirm the existence of certain bears that I had not heard of – FOZZIE, SOOTY, BIFFO, BUNGLE, BALOO. [I was very sad that POOH Bear did not make it in as he is my favourite.]

   PLACKET was also a new word for me, as was OZZIE for ‘Aussie’.

   I liked 18d, 25a, 16d & 1d and my favourites were 24d YOGI, 20d RUPERT & 10a NAMIBIA.

   I couldn’t parse 21a & 2d.

   Thanks Kairos & Duncan.

   gwep@1
   Re 11a, the Italian spelling is RILIEVO. (I only managed to get it right because I had worked it out via the anagram fodder). Re 7a, Oxford dictionaries online give an example of enervate as an adjective: “the enervate slightness of his frail form”.

4. Same here with Bungle, K’s D.

   Minor quibble. Arpeggio has nothing to do with speed.

5. A very enjoyable puzzle. However, I also had RELIEVO because I didn’t check the anagram fodder properly and I was unaware of the variant spelling. That’s my fault, not the setter’s, so a tip of the hat to him.

   Count me as another who was amused by the clue for NAMIBIA.

   The only one of the bears that I didn’t know, or at least only vaguely knew, was BUNGLE, but the answer was gettable enough from the wordplay. I was looking for where Pooh was going to go, and I thought for a while that 9dn might have been a variation on the theme with supercilious as the definition and Pooh somehow involved in the answer. It was only when I solved PLACKET that I got SOOTY, my LOI.

6. michelle@3 you’re quite right about rilievo. I looked it up in my Italian dictionary before posting and it is indeed rilievo; but I must have been so sure it was the other way, that my brain registered it as relivio.

7. Or even relievo.

8. Thanks Duncan and Kairos a suitable silly themed crossword for the morning commute. Unlike others my last one was Biffo, obviously I never read that comic as a child :-(.

9. I think this suffered a bit with hard words — that anagran of RILEVO was naughty really –, but still enjoyable.

   Thanks all
   Rowls.

10. All those years of browsing technical computer forums and seeing people describe themselves as noobs finally came to my aid here with 2 down. Up to then, I was struggling to get anywhere. Once the theme was grasped, it fell out very quickly. I think I remember a bear-themed puzzle in the Guardian many centuries ago which had some of the same answers (although different clues, I imagine).

11. Not much to add, but I can’t bear to be left out. I was surprised to find Pooh wasn’t there, though.

    I have a feeling that the AM I BI device has been used before somewhere; maybe not to clue NAMIBIA, though I can’t immediately think of another word containing that sequence of letters. Any ideas?

    Thanks, Kairos and Duncan.

12. I think it’s been used to clue iambi (a statement rather than a question).

13. @4 Conrad Cork

    Under arpeggio in Chambers: chord … notes performed …in rapid succession; notes of a chord played … in rapid ascending or descending progression.

14. Conrad’s right really, in that arpeggios aren’t always played at breakneck speed. Plus that’s probably a cryptic def rather than an &lit, and of all the very nice clues here it was the one I liked least.

15. I wonder sometimes as a blogger about clues folks complain about whether they are unfair clues or just plain hard. Drains yesterday by rufus I felt was ott but once I got it fair enough.

16. Many thanks to Duncan for the excellent review and to all who commented. Sorry I was not able to include Pooh in the grid. My favourite bears from childhood were Tingha and Tucker though whenever I mention them, I always get blank looks. I did wonder at one time if I was imagining them but Wikipedia confirms they existed.

17. Hmm, I remember Tingha and Tucker only for a schoolyard prank where you got someone to try and sing their song whilst whilst they put their fingers in their mouth in such a way that the initial letters ‘t’ turned to ‘f’s.

18. After that last comment we’re not sure what else to say!

    We missed Pooh too but will forgive Kairos for the omission as the puzzle was good fun and few of the bears were write-ins. Noobs were new as far as we were concerned.

    Thanks again to Kairos – more please!

    Well done Duncan for including all the images.

19. We’ve just followed up the Tingha and Tucker link only to find that Joyce still has one of them without realising it! It came from that era – she just thought it was any old koala!

    Thanks Kairos!

20. 19 had me reaching for the Germoloids.

21. Thanks bootikins @14. Somthing is either an arpeggio or it isn’t, regardless of the speed at which it is played.

    Chambers is not always right, I’m afraid, and on a few occasions they have accpeted corrections from me.

22. Conrad Cork, I always had to play my arpeggios directly after my scales, so when I read ‘rapid progression’, I took it to refer not to the tempo, but rather to the change in pitch; an arpeggio clearly changes pitch more rapidly than does a scale.

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