Independent on Sunday 1,415 by Poins

15 comments on “Independent on Sunday 1,415 by Poins”

1. I’ve never seen Bertha spelled like that. I parse 17a as une + (m)arth(a).

2. Quite so Hovis. I will fix it asap…

3. I certainly preferred this to Wiglaf yesterday (when I was spoiled by Qaos and Rosa Klebb) but a teeny point occurs to me.All US states have, for better or worse, reduced in abbr to two letters,So I wondered if it would be more accurate to say “California once” which would not only be ore correct but add to the subterfuge.

4. hello compus – there is no requirement for the setter to use “official” abbreviations, though of course he or she can if they so choose. Cal for California has a life of its own and is certainly current.

5. I think it was the great raconteur and wit Kathryn’s Dad who once said something like ‘funny business, crosswords’ and I’d certainly agree with him. I really enjoyed this puzzle, but didn’t find it easy at all – so odd how you can get on well one day and hit a wall the next. Mix of things behind that, I reckons: the major one being wot I quoth earlier. Lots of nice stuff here with my pick of the day being the way a tough-for-me challenge kept me at it so thanks to Poins for the puzzle and to PD for the blog.

6. I totally understand the “here one day gone the next” syndrome for crossword solving ability. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

7. I found this trickier than it looked at first and ended up going to a wordfinder for one or two answers. But enjoyable even so. Favourites were DRESDEN, AVID, PERMISSIVE, GOYA and DETAILED.

   But one observation and one quibble:

   Did Poins mean to link the clues to 6 and 7 with ellipses? It would have given a better surface to 6 without affecting 7.

   And my (minor) quibble is with 27ac where ‘Rider’ in this case is a proper name and according to convention should have an initial capital. I realise that that would have given the game away, so to speak, but the clue could have had ‘Rider’ as the first word although it might not have read quite so smoothly. And I know, too, that the convention is illogical in that it allows misleading initial capitals for words that don’t need them.

   By co-incidence Friday’s reprint from 2012 in the i had a clue with a missing capital.

   But thanks, all the same, to Poins and PeeDee

8. allan_c – out of the three crosswords I blogged this weekend two of them have uncapitalised names in the clues. Is a convention still a convention if setters do not follow it?

9. I quite agree with Allan_C about Rider – the author’s name was not rider – and I’m not convinced by ’employing’ for ‘containing’ either. I’m sure Poins could have rejigged it to ‘Rider, perhaps, something something astride a horse’.

   But there is nothing wrong with the surface of 6d. ‘On account of earlier’ means ‘on account of that stuff that happened earlier’.

10. allan_c @7: Ximenes justified the apparent illogicality you mention on the grounds that there are some contexts in which unexpected capitalisation can occur mid-sentence. On the other hand, removing a capital where it is obligatory is unfair because then “you are not saying what you mean.”

    PeeDee @8: I’m sure some of the libertarian-minded commenters on Guardian puzzles would be happy to see all the conventions thrown out of the window on the grounds that “Everything is fine so long as I can solve it.” Personally, I take quite a different view: maybe I’m old-fashioned but I believe good grammar is important – even in clue-writing.

11. Coming in late here, for 17a (UNEARTH) I fall between two stools. I completely accept that mARTHa works as the wordplay but feel that eARTHa (as in the gorgeous Eartha Kitt) works equally well as the girl’s name and was my first guess at a parse because I got the def before the construction. Obviously you have to put the French ‘UN’ into the masculine but it still works, perhaps even better…?
    Perhaps Poins will enlighten us.
    Good puzzle, good blog and even better nit-picking posts. Thats’s why we do this stuff. Thanks to all.

12. Yes, Grant, I also thought of Eartha (Kitt).
    That said, I think PeeDee’s Martha is a more common name and the one to prefer (if one has to).
    When you say “Obviously you have to put the French ‘UN’ into the masculine“, then I am afraid Eartha’s E fooled you.

13. Sil & Grant – I originally had bEARTHa in the blog, but Hovis pointed out to me that I had spelled the name wrongly. The Martha explanation should be credited to Hovis. I imagine Eartha taking her kit off rather than stripping.

14. gofirstmate @10 – I understand what you say about good grammar, crosswords with well constructed grammar are very pleasing and a joy to solve. Over the years I have found that the only way I differ from most commenters on this subject (for and against) is that I also really enjoy the flagrantly libertarian puzzles too. I love them both. This may be a very wishy-washy position to take, but it suits me fine. I get to enjoy solving almost every puzzle I undertake.

    I was just struck, rather whimsically, by the apparent contradiction of a convention that is not being followed. Can it still be a convention?

15. Thanks PeeDee@4-I was just wondering . I like Cal actually.So Cal makes more sense than So Ca.And I believe So Ho-is “south of Houston Street”(Lower manhattan)

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