Independent 10,102 by Wiglaf

13 comments on “Independent 10,102 by Wiglaf”

1. Always know I’m in for a bruising when tackling a Wiglaf puzzle. Don’t think I have ever completed one without using some level of cheating. No exception here, having to use a word fit for IRRAWADDY.

   Really enjoyed the tussle. Didn’t spot the Cream theme. My only CD by them is Disraeli Gears.

   Thanks to Wiglaf and Bertandjoyce.

2. Missed it! and Eric even appeared in a clue.

   Thanks for blog and thanks Wiglaf.

3. Very tough and too much GK required for my taste.  6d was my favourite and I appreciated the setter pointing out that the answer is a common misspelling.

   Thanks to Wiglaf and B&J.

4. A bit of a struggle but got there in the end, although completely missing the theme.

   I liked the wrong army types. OCTOPI was an answer in the other place once and caused a bit of a ruckus, although allegedly the Americans use it as a plural [Merriam-Webster etc.]

   I didn’t think I would know any Ethiopian princesses but then the camel came to my rescue.

   Thanks Wiglaf and BJ.

5. Wrote ‘phew’ on the top of this one when I’d finally completed it.   Rather a lot of GK that I had to check on and not sure that made it a particularly enjoyable solve although I was certainly pleased with myself for having soldiered through!

   Top two for me were 19a & 8d.

   Thanks to Wiglaf and to B&J for the blog.   Unlike you, the Cream connection went over my head – I know little about the group beyond the fact that it existed!

6. Too good for me. Didn’t spot the theme and missed IRRAWADDY (maybe should have solved, but in reality never would have) and BADGE (no excuses). Only managed to get a few unheard of ones including CÓRDOBA, HYPATIA and ANDROMEDA (in the sense given anyway) from the wordplay, so all in all, pretty tough.

   I think the third or fourth appearance of ‘Army types’, or variations on the theme, in several places over the last year or so and that was my first in. Lots of good ones, of which my favourites were ULULATE and the reminder of ALFRED WALLACE.

   Thanks to Wiglaf and to B&J.

7. This is odd.
   Everyone seems to have had an enjoyable tussle with this one but I more-or-less spooled through it, far faster than today’s FT which was itself a breeze. I expected to find mere polite comments – ‘solid clues, nice surfaces’ – here. You lot are consistently quicker & cleverer than me at this because, much as I love the process, I’m a slow solver. I had to check HYPATIA but that was it.
   And I didn’t even get the theme: ‘Crossroads’ & ‘Spoonful’ are the only tracks I know and that wouldn’t even have had me (pointlessly) looking around.
   But thanks as ever to Bert’n’Joyce and Wiglaf.
   Yours, confused of Buxton.

8. I came here for the parsing of 21D (I just did not see “Lulu,” duh!). Missed the Cream connection entirely. Had no difficulty with the “individuals” you mention, bertandjoyce, although I’d have said Hypatia was Alexandrian rather than Greek (yes, I realize it’s a bit hairsplitting!) and I’m unaccustomed to Alfred Russel Wallace being referred to without his middle name.

9. Oh, sorry, meant to say: Thanks, bertandjoyce!

10. A very slow start and strangely IRRAWADDY was the only across clue I got on the first pass, but ultimately finished about par for a ‘hard’ one. Mr Wallace rang a bell from a recent BBC4 repeat, and I just switched on ‘show errors’ for the Hypatia anagram. I liked OCTOPI, and the ‘no trains’ bit took a while to get so overall very enjoyable. Missed the theme as usual despite being of that era. Thanks to Wiglaf and to B&J, my contemporaries at Sheffield in the late 60s, it seems.

11. I found this crossword a lot easier than the ones in Wiglaf’s back catalogue.

    Note: ‘easier’ doesn’t mean ‘easy’!  And therefore no Grant Baynham experience for me.

    Like others I missed the Cream theme completely (but I should have seen it – shame on me [well, sort of]).

    Altogether a very enjoyable puzzle with a lot of finesse in the clueing.

    Also many thanks as ever to Bertandjoyce [nice anecdote!], especially for explaining 1ac (GNOCCHI) of which the parsing eluded me (probably because, from my Dutch background, I am used to pronounce the G at the beginning).

    All very fine, except (only a minor thing) that apparently F = ‘French’ (22dn) slipped through the net.

    [F = ‘France’, and ‘French’ = FR (which – how confusing – can also mean ‘France’)]

    Thumbs up for Wiglaf!

    ps, don’t tell hardcore Guardian that this puzzle had OCTOPI in it ….. 🙂

     

     

12. Have I understood the explanation of 6dn correctly? That is, ‘army’ meaning having many arms, and the answer being a word that does not exist other than when used in error? If so, my brain hurts more than I though!

     

13. We needed a bit of help along the way.  We worked out that the surname in 9dn was ‘Wallace’ but had to check an encyclopaedia for the first name.  For 14ac we eventually thoght of the IRRAWADDY but had to check that it’s spelt with two r’s before we were sure, and 16ac was our LOI – areal ‘Doh!’ moment – after consulting a thesaurus for synonyms of ‘mark’.  And we took ages to remember which Latin Amercan country the Contras operated in and uses the Cordoba as its currency.

    Apart from that a steady solve with no real problems – though we failed to spot the theme.  Favourites were GNOCCHI and SPOONFUL.

    Thanks, Wiglaf and B&J

    PS: TFO@12:  In fact ‘wrongly’ seems to refer both to ‘octopi’ being wrong as the plural of ‘octopus’ (Chambers specifically says it is wrong) and to ‘army’ being wrong for ‘having arms’ (Chambers doesn’t have it, only ‘armed’ as ‘having arms’ in the sense of ‘one-armed’ etc.)

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