Independent 9694 /Filbert

41 comments on “Independent 9694 /Filbert”

1. Thanks Duncan
   In 5ac, I read POW as Prince of Wales. There is a theme here with many entries relating to one of the very few films I have watched, and enjoyed, during the last 50 years.

2. What a great puzzle.
   Heavily themed around Four Weddings and a Funeral.
   @Duncan….get the tea tray ready… Charles = PoW= Prince of Wales.
   Very well done to (Gilbert the) Filbert, from Knut with a K

3. second again to Quick Draw McGraw, aka Gaufrid

4. Found a lot of this a bit obscure, or a little difficult for the sake of it in places.

   Think there are grammar errors at 20a and 22d, unless ’embed’ is a noun? 5d has an indirect anagram, unless it is intended as a reversal, and 6d is difficult to accept as well, as it can only work, I think, as in ‘this person is come to’.

   Thanks Duncan and Filbert.

5. @NHS
   an “embed” (n) is a war reporter embedded with the military.

6. Mucky is a graduate of Big Dave’s site’s “Rookie Corner”

7. A very nice debut!

   NHS@4: I think all your objections can be met. Embed is indeed a noun (see Collins), meaning an embedded journalist. In 5d ‘misguided’ is a reversal, as you say, since it has been ‘guided’ in the wrong direction: edgy but allowable, I think. And I’m not sure what you mean about 6d. To come to is to awake.

8. Me @6 what I should have said is that Filbert aka Mucky is a ….

9. I agree with NHS about 20A, but found the puzzle okay. Maybe it could have calmed things down a bit here and there, or perhaps been a little more straightforward (as it is a daily), but in general it seems pretty sound to me.

   Thanks both.

10. Hard work but worth it in the end even if the theme escaped me. (My favourite part of the film was the black lab. in the final scene but a reference to that probably wouldn’t have helped either). Learnt a new noun (not one I like much admittedly) at 22d and a new meaning for SINGLETON. The best bit was undoubtedly the ‘Help! Cymbal clanger’ part of the wordplay for 19d – a real highlight.

    Thanks to Filbert (welcome and look forward to more) and to Duncan.

11. Worst puzzle I’ve seen in a while- a B grade DIY that doesnt even deserve the miserly stipend that the Indy can hardly afford.
    After Enigmatist’s Genius this was like going from an el Classico at Camp Nou to watching Accrington Stanley play Canvey Island.
    And I’m not impressed that another darling animal lost its life at Flemington.
    I dont care how much money Lewis Hamilton earns-no, one suffers.
    End of rant.

12. so SCARLET(T) shared a flat with CHARLES, UNMARRIED.
    ANNA Chancellor played a girl nicknamed DUCK FACE
    RSVP was on all the wedding invitations, one of which took place in a KIRK (on GLEBE land)
    After a CORONARY killed Gareth there was A WAKE at which AUDEN’s Stop All the Clocks was read.
    Carrie said “I don’t SKULK”
    +RING OFF, BEST MAN, SERIAL MONOGAMIST plus a mention of some characters in the wp.
    Not bad

13. baerchen @12-thats all very well but half the clues are crap.

    May not get too many Christmas cards this year.

14. Thanks for blogging, Duncan. I enjoyed this. It’s Tuesday, so it’s theme day, and the fact that the film is one I know and like helped to hit the spot for me. Even Gaufrid has heard of it, so it must be well-known. However, I reserve the right to whinge next Tuesday when the theme is ‘obscure’ (to me) and I don’t like it. As penance in advance for that whinge, here are all the references to Four Weddings and a Funeral.

    SCARLET (actually SCARLETT) is one of the female characters
    CHARLES is the protagonist, and Hugh Grant’s character; the role was his first major one, I think
    UNMARRIED is what Charles is, and worries that he will remain so
    AUDEN is W H AUDEN, whose poem ‘Stop all the Clocks’ features as a reading at the funeral
    KIRK is where one of the weddings takes place in Scotland
    SELF-DENIAL might be a bit of an underlying theme
    CORONARY refers to the heart attack that Simon Callow’s character, Gareth, dies from, causing the ‘Funeral’
    SERIAL MONOGAMIST is what Henrietta accuses Charles of being
    RSVPs feature in the film to invite people to the weddings
    SINGLETON is what Charles fears he may stay
    DUCK FACE is Henrietta’s nickname
    ANNA Chancellor played Henrietta
    BEST MAN is what Charles was at one of the weddings

    In the clues: 31ac references the fact that Henrietta got stood up at the altar by Charles; Andie MacDowell, who played Carrie, is referenced in 12ac and mentioned in 5dn; Bernard and Lydia are mentioned in 24dn and got married (this is how I twigged the theme); 27ac vaguely references some of the goings-on and you could perhaps also throw ADMIRER into the same category.

    I think that’s it. It won’t make Copmus any happier, but might fill in a few gaps.

15. baerchen is quicker at doing the captcha than I am …

16. Could not agree less with @11copmus. This took a while to work out what was going on, then finally realised that it was something to do with FWAAF. Some very quirky and entertaining stuff and look forward to further Filberts.

    I think I’m in the same country as Copmus as I was watching the races this afternoon. Can only assume the death of Regal Monarch (to be deplored but nothing to do with Filbert) has caused this incontinent denunciation of the setter.

    Thanks to Filbert and duncanshiell (you must watch the film).

17. @K’s dad
    I just wanted to get it out of the way so I can concentrate on my TIN CUP themer.
    @copmus
    well, it’s a view!

18. Can’t disagree more with copmus. Thought this was a brilliant and quite difficult crossword. Lots of invention, which is always welcome to me. Liked the slightly risqué clues at 15a and 25a with the reference to French letters, i.e. condoms. The clue for KIRK was clever and the disguised use of POW had me thinking for awhile. The clueing for SCAR in 1a and RINGO in 19d we’re both excellent. Don’t know if it was deliberate or not, but the printed version has lo-cal split across lines leading you to think it is ‘local’ which threw me for a little while. Great crossword and great blog.

19. Congratulations on your debut Filbert! Nice to see a friend from BD’s site move across here, welcome.

    I could see there was a marriage thing going on but I didn’t make the connection to the movie. This puzzle took me a while! My last one in was 17d, where i had to reveal the first letter to get the answer, which i wasn’t familiar with, it turns out. But I now realise it’s a nice &lit, very clever. Lots of clever definitions, including the help cymbal clanger.

    I particularly liked CHARLES, though POW might be a cheeky definition, CORONARY, LOG CABIN, NOOSE (ouch), ADMIRER, AWAKE, LUDDITE.

    I thought I might be missing something with BEST MAN, but there is a clear connection to the theme.

    Many thanks!

    And many thanks Duncanshiell for explaining 17d and 8d, where i was missing the parsing, I was trying to match alone with single etc.

20. Well, we found this challenging but we warmed to it as we went on. We didn’t get the specific theme, not having seen the film (where have we been all this time?) but we soon twigged it had to do with “hatched, matched and dispatched” (not that there was actually any “hatched”). LOI was EMBEDS which couldn’t be anything else but we’d forgotten that meaning till we checked the dictionary, and we couldn’t parse ETERNAL.

    Plenty of really great clues – SUFFERS, TOILETRY and CODIFY among them but they were all good. Full marks to Filbert.

    Thanks, Filbert and Duncan.

21. Lost in admiration of setter and blogger. Filbert will be a name to be reckoned with ,I feel sure. The whole thread so far has been great craic, so thanks to all the posters. (Even copmus, who seems to have got out of bed on the wrong side today!)
    Come back soon, Filbert.

22. Sorry all-I was a bit spoilt by the wizardry of Enigmatist, not to mention Imogen.
    I normally dont comment on a puzzle I dont like but… maybe it was dealing with the phone company that is virtually a monopoly here-and in Townsville its chief building is shared by the evil Adani company who are battling with Trump for the bottom place in book one of The Divine Comedy(although that spot is already taken by R Murdoch).

    Occasionally when I do a puzzle I put a tick against certain clues I like, and a double tick when I get a chuckle. This one got some ticks but also a few Q marks and a few definite X’s(and that was after parsing -I wouldnt dare to criticise something I fail to parse)

    And I love the bloggers here.

23. (@copmus
    I assumed you’d been mixing the absinthe and poteen again)

24. Hate, Actually

25. @baerchen Shepherd Neame and rioja maybe-mea culpa-I’m a poor ring-in for hb.
    And I first saw the film on a plane where the F word had been replaced by “bugger”.
    The Auden reading was the highlight.
    I hope there’s no theme in future on “Love Actually”which I hated apart from the bit with Rowan Atkinson.

26. I was up to even less than my usual not much when solving this one due to a cold so didn’t do too well – but it was clear to me that there was a lot to like here. Look forward to more from this setter in future when I’ll hopefully be more equal to the task. Welcome aboard Filbert and thanks for the puzzle, and thanks too to DS for the enlightenment.

27. Many thanks to Duncan for the great blog, Gaufrid and all who’ve commented and had a go + Baerchen and Kathryn’s Dad for listing the references.
    One more: the cymbal clanger is the loudmouth who does the Corinthians reading at the first wedding (If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal) and then interrupts Charles and Carrie (damned fine filly) at the pub later. One for my own amusement, perhaps.
    ‘Redhead with treatment for neuroses makes Tin Cup steady (4,5)’. Looking forward to it.
    James

28. Didn’t have the script handy, so didn’t understand what was going on. Then the penny dropped; of course. The twisted and artificial nature of the clues could only mean this was a bit of self-indulgence by the setter. It may well be the most brilliant puzzle ever, but I didn’t like it so don’t expect me to praise it.

29. My opportunities to solve are pretty much restricted to S&B gatherings these days, but when a new colleague arrives I try to make the effort. uBlock Origin was my undoing on that front but at least 225 lets me see the clues.
    This puzzle is frankly brilliant. Nobody needs to know about FWAAF to enjoy it – the references are incidental. It’s packed with clever defs and several nicely executed examples of ‘lift and separate’. There is craft in abundance here. Self-indulgent? Not at all. It’s self-indulgent if it calls on the solver to treat it as anything other than a standard puzzle (which it doesn’t) to satisfy the setter’s whim. In any case, as I’ve said a bazillion times before, what often gets called self-indulgent is actually the setter making sure they keep technically sharp by giving themselves a (usually restrictive) clueing task.
    A very warm welcome to the squad Filbert. This is a puzzle you can be proud of for many more reasons than it being your debut.

30. A very good debut. As has been said already, there’s a lot to admire here, both in terms of clever definitions and elegant wordplay. Loved LUDDITE, LOG CABIN and ANNA, but completely missed the theme despite only knowing the latter from the film.

    Many thanks to Duncan and a very warm welcome to Filbert. Look forward to seeing more in the future

31. You’ve certainly upped the ante a bit since the good old Rookie days, Filbert (Mucky), and I found this one a little tricky in places. Certainly needed Duncan’s help to get the full parsing of 20&31A plus 26d although, with the benefit of hindsight, I should have been able to work them out for myself. I did, however, get the POW!

    Much as I enjoyed the film, the theme floated over my head – proving, if nothing else, that you didn’t need to latch onto that in order to solve the puzzle.

    Thank you, that was good fun and congrats on your professional debut.
    Thanks also to Duncan for the blog.

32. Well – that’s a bumper bundle of comments on an Indie Blog. It makes a blogger’s day to get lots of comments. Thanks for all the pointers to Four Weddings and a Funeral which clearly went over my head. I regret that I have never seen the film.

    Films are not my thing as I have proved conclusively with this blog. My wife tells me that I should have run some of the allusions past her and she would have identified the theme instantly!

    Thanks also for pointing out POW as Prince of Wales. I should have spotted that with the entry as CHARLES

    When I next blog a Filbert puzzle I’ll look forward to doing a bit more research on the clues and entries rather than just stopping at a hint of a theme.

33. I enjoyed this, despite not having seen the film, although I did at least twig a nuptial theme. Favourite clue was Advent, for the misdirection (for me) of Jesus.
    Welcome Filbert, and thanks to Duncan.

34. Hi Filbert/Mucky. I followed your self-plug from Big Dave’s site and have been dipping in and out of this puzzle all day. It’s actually rather above my pay grade but I’m a persistent fellow and I don’t like to give up on something I’ve started and with quite a bit of research I got there in the end. I enjoyed many of the penny drop moments while I was working on it, and with hindsight I’m pleased to have completed it and I am full of admiration for your inventiveness both in terms of wordplay and definitions.

    I twigged a marriage theme but didn’t make the leap to FWAAF even though I realised who Andie was.

    There were lots of great clues here, but I’ll single out 20a, 7d & 13d with the magnificent 19d my personal favourite.

    Well done on a great professional debut, Filbert, and thanks too to Duncan.

35. I found this a bit too much hard work to be enjoyable, but I did finish it with a bit of help from word searches.

    I have never seen Four Weddings…

36. It’s always good to have a new setter in town.
    And I will be the last one to say that this wasn’t a good crossword!

    However, I needed two sessions (and a bit) and still could not find six entries (although half of them I rightly guessed).
    Something that doesn’t happen very often outside the borders of Nimrodland.
    My conclusion must be that this was extremely difficult for me.
    I found it hard to get into Filbert’s mindset which does not say anything about the quality of clueing.
    The clue at 1ac, essential for spotting the theme perhaps, was one that went above my head (having only the S,A and L.).
    The theme was lost on me despite having seen the movie at least a couple of times.
    To be honest, I couldn’t be bothered.
    For this solver, a theme (blatant or ghost) is more of a bonus.
    So, while I’m impressed with all the FWAAF connections (see KD’s post @14 – and more), I’m more impressed by some ingenious clueing.
    Of which there was plenty (with hindsight).

    I feel I need another chance with this setter.
    Today, the solver in me and the setter in Filbert were in the end some kind of mismatch.
    But then, I recall the first few times that I tried to tackle a Bonxie puzzle in The Guardian and couldn’t make much if it.
    Years later I got to grips with his style.
    So, there’s always hope! 🙂

    Many thanks to Duncan for your ‘popular’ blog.

37. We forgot it was Theme-day but even if we had remembered, we don’t think we would have sorted it out despite seeing and enjoying the film.

    It took us a while to get into the puzzle for the same reasons that others have mentioned. Some of the definitions seemed a little ‘too clever’ but were certainly original. Given time, we’ll be more used to Filbert’s mucky style!

    Congratulations on all the thematic references and on your first Indy puzzle.

    Thanks Duncan – here’s another comment to add to the pile!

38. I’ve vied amicably with Filbert for “kludos” in the Guardian clue-writing competitions for most of this year so knew what clever and deceptive clues he can write and I said earlier this year that we’d soon see him in a national (getting a bit of what goes down better in shops than kludos :))

    Now I know what it’s like to look down the barrel of his clues — bloody hard! And bloody great when you click on to what he’s done. I actually didn’t finish, partly because of a wild stab: engagement for MONOGAMIST (and I still don’t see where the definition is for that).

    I screwed up further with sign off for RING OFF with no idea what the cymbal-crashing was about (but how clever, especially with the extra link to Corinthians*). Unfortunately, the theme was no help at at all to me as I know nothing about the film. It’s about four weddings and a funeral, isn’t it? Stunned reading the exegesis of the theme, though. Btw, Allan_C, there was a hatching ref in the clues, if not the film — with what could be read as a very irreverent mention of the Virgin Mary’s … er .. Braechen, if you get my drift.

    Congratulations again “catarella” on a great first gig. What’s the story with the new tag?

    @Duncanschiell: had to laugh reading of your inability to link POW to Charles — you should see the dent in my tea-tray from when I realised myself. Of course it’s normally PoW, but even Ximenes granted spurious capitals are allowed, I believe, so a very effective bit of misdirection there. Btw, I think you may have missed the point that hide = skin in 1ac?

    *Crashing Cymbal award to Copmus, even if he/she calmed down later.

39. Thanks, Tony – I’d momentarily forgotten 15ac.

40. Congratulations Filbert!

    I didn’t finish this yesterday and allowed myself liberal use of cheats today because time was flying by (just shows that I must have been having fun). I’m sure I’d have needed lots of help anyway.

    Certainly tough, but lots of great stuff including ADVENT, NOOSE, SUFFERS, AWAKE and LUDDITE.

    News of the theme did reach my ears ahead of time, but I have no doubt I’d have missed it.

    Thanks — and very well done — to Filbert for the puzzle and to Duncan for the blog.

    P.S. I had a look at the Mucky Rookie Corner puzzles to remind myself what I’d thought. The first was a bit too tough for me, but I really enjoyed subsequent ones. So I’m definitely looking forward to the next appearance of Filbert.

41. Took this one to the pub last night and really enjoyed it. Some very inventive clueing and quite tricky in places.

    Thanks to Filbert and Duncan

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