Independent 9071 / Hieroglyph

14 comments on “Independent 9071 / Hieroglyph”

1. Thanks Duncan and Hieroglyph.
   In addition to the odd use of “oddly”, there’s also the odd “-” at the start of the clue for 23across, at least in the online version. I presume you did a bit of editing for your blog, deciding that it was a typo. Or is there another explanation?

2. Thanks for the blog Duncan. Mea culpa at 20 down – it should of course be “Oddly, missing…”

3. Pill bugs are crustaceans, not insects. Even in crossword land you can’t get away with calling the lovely beasts mere insects.

   Other than that, rather pleasant.

   Incidentally, if you try to use the contact form on the Indy site at the minute it points to a non existent email address. What support there was now seems to have moved to the US company supplying the software so it’s probably not worth bothering anyway.

4. At least the gateway clue was clear, and in fact I did get all the acrosses in the end apart from OESTRUS. I wouldn’t have fancied doing it on the bus, since there was a bit of verification required to be certain creatures like the ANTLION and ELATER did in fact exist.

   I had to give up on several of the downs, though. Just a bit strained for my taste, but I’m not mad keen on themed puzzles like this. Each to his own.

   Thanks to S&B.

5. The comment from sidey reminds me of a clue in Another Place a year or so ago, where MILLIPEDE was clued as ‘insect’. Since it doesn’t have a head, thorax and abdomen, it is clearly not an insect, but the justification was that Chambers has one definition of ‘insect’ as ‘any other small invertebrate, eg a spider’. Which as I pointed out at the time, is complete and utter bollocks. Dictionaries get things wrong, and that was one example of it.

   As for the new Indy xword site … shtum, because otherwise Gaufrid will show me a straight red for foul and abusive language.

6. Learnt the names of a few new insects for future reference – ELATER, ANTLION and OESTRUS – plus the term ‘ut supra’ which I hadn’t come across before. Liked the clue for MOSQUITO.

   The crossword site has at least been reliable for the past couple of weeks, but yes, I could do without the extraneous promotional material, aka annoying ads. I guess it’s the price we pay for open access I tell myself to the accompaniment of much gnashing of teeth.

   Thanks to S&B.

7. Good puzzle but I felt slightly cheated that I wasn’t slightly cheated, if you see what I mean. E.g., a nice down clue might have been ‘One down, one against (4)’…

8. One of those themed crosswords where you DO have to be aware of the theme, but as it was obvious there was no real problem apart from having to confirm a few lesser-known answers.

   Lovely misdirection in 18dn. First I thought it referred to 12ac, ‘down’ being an error. Then after I twigged ‘down under’ I spent ages looking for species of termite found in oz. A real facepalm moment when I finally got the answer.

   sidey @3: according to an article on Wikipedia, “Pill bugs … are able to form their bodies into a ball shape … . This behaviour is shared with pill millipedes … armadillos and cuckoo wasps.” The latter are insects so Heiroglyph gets away with it on a technicality.

   My only quibble is that I would hyphenate 4dn as MIS-SET

   Thanks, Heiroglyph (we’ll forgive the missing ‘missing’) and Duncan

9. “The latter are insects so Heiroglyph gets away with it on a technicality.”

   By that “logic” it is also a mammal. I can only hope you are attempting, but failing, to be humorous.

10. I’d only come across the heat definition for oestrus and the “as above” bit lost me as well. The consequence was that I finished the rest of the puzzle but was left staring at that one for ages trying to think of anything else that could possibly fit.

    I must admit I’m also slightly lost on Allan_C’s logic – how is something an insect just because it can make the same shape as an insect? I suppose that colloquially people might call woodlice bugs and bugs generally refer to insects, so that might be an argument in Hieroglyph’s favour. Having said that, the root definition is “six footer” and woodlice have 14 legs, so it’s a little hard to get round that.

11. I found this bug filled puzzle great fun. Unlike the bug filled Indy software They had it running quite well (at least, not totally rubbish) a while ago but it seems to get worse by the day. It took forever to load in IE (after several crashes) and wasn’t much better in Firefox. If this is an attempt to drive us to buy the paper why don’t they just take the puzzle offline altogether.

    The Indy is my favourite puzzle series at the moment but I’m losing patience to the point it’s not worth the hassle. I feel sorry for the setters and the editor who work hard to produce excellent puzzles, and they have been let down by this pathetic excuse for software.

12. I enjoyed this, although like K’s D I’m not a fan of this type of puzzle, and I suppose the dreadful checking was justified by the need to get the theme in without using words that were too obscure.

    One little quibble though: how can you call the Humber an estuary? OK the River Humber has an estuary, but to do this is like using ‘arm’ to define ‘man’ because a man has an arm.

13. @12
    The Humber is the estuary of the Ouse and the Trent. Have you never seen it on a map? It’s known as the river Humber sometimes but it isn’t a river – it has no source and it’s all tidal. See Wikipedia…

14. Nicely done, HieroG!
    Very good. Swift but no snipes…. though 20 oddly bugging.

    Herb@13 – mmm….so when does the river become estuary, and when does the estuary become sea? And does this mean that no river meets the sea? We should be told….!
    Thank you, one and both and all.

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