Independent on Sunday 1,551 by Kairos

18 comments on “Independent on Sunday 1,551 by Kairos”

1. Some clever stuff that I didn’t immediately see when entering the answers eg HOOP and KNOCK.

   9A surely “exceedingly” would be better than “extremely”.

   15A I would have thought Benny Hill – who’s Harry?

   19A typo – Bahamas is BS

   3D not familiar with “g” for group (yes it’s bound to be in some dictionary or other)

   12D don’t get “add lines to”

   17D it doesn’t affect the answer, but the letters dropped are NI (Northern Island) not IN.

   Thanks to Kairos and PeeDee.

2. There’s a theme of circuits: BRANDS HATCH, GGOD WOOD, SILVER STONE, BROOK LANDS (I put in the spaces for clarity). G for group was new to me. I also opted for Benny Hill. Thanks all.

3. Obviously I meant GOOD not GGOD.

4. gwep@1 – to hatch is to add lines to, usually in a criss-cross fashion on printed documents, to blank something out but leave it sort of showing. Either/or situations etc.
   Didn’t know the OOD, and don’t think i’ve met a Beefalo (knife and fork at the ready?). Otherwise quite gentle, especially as I misread the setter as Klingsor.
   Thanks to Kairos and Peedee.

5. Greetings all from a sunny Menton in the South of France where your setting is enjoying some R&R and welcome to any blog readers in the Cote D’Azure.  Thanks to PeeDee for the blog and congratulations to Hovis @2 for spotting the Nina.  There is a fifth to be found.

6. Superb.   6a was a new word for me.   I thought 19a, 16d & 25d were the pick of a great bunch.

   Many thanks to Kairos and PeeDee.

7. Oops.  “setter”, not “setting”.

8. Thank you gwep for spotting the typos, fixed now.

   My assumption was that Kairos used “extremely” rather than “exceedingly” to send us off on a red-herring looking for the outer letters of something.  It worked on me anyway 🙂

   I would have thought Harry Hill is better known these days than Benny Hill.  I wondered which Hill to put in the blog and had a quick skim through Wikipedia.  In 2006 Channel 4 made a program where old Benny Hill programs were shown to a younger generation, who had never heard of Benny Hill and some were infants when Hill was last broadcasting.  It doesn’t say whether they found him funny, but interestingly none of the audience found Benny Hill’s notoriously sexist and non-PC sketches offensive.

9. Thank you for dropping in Kairos.  We have a Knock Hill down the road from us in Fife, I know nothing about motor racing but is that the fifth?

10. PeeDee @8: I was thinking of Benny Hill but either he or Harry fit the bill. @9: Yes, Knockhill was the fifth.

11. Thanks to PeeDee and Kairos

    I know next to nothing of Dr Who so I Parsed 3d as

    G probably short for GROUP though not in any of my dictionaries

    O of – as in “will o’ the wisp”

    OD creatures in Dr Who

    Now I see that the creatures are OOD, so perhaps G stands for “group of”, as in G7.

    Otherwise “of” is unaccounted for.

12. I did have to investigate the creatures from Dr Who and spent quite a while justifying 26a -easy enough when I finally rid myself of POLO!

    Thank goodness I had left the employment field when 20a became the thing – can’t imagine any worse environment to work in.

     

    Many thanks to Kairos for the puzzle and to PeeDee for the review.

13. I have to admit didn’t bother to look up g for group, I just took a punt and assumed it would be listed.  I think there is a large degree of arbitrariness about whether an abbreviation gets an entry in the dictionary. G standing for group clearly crops up very frequently in the names of companies and other types of organisation.  When does someone decide that it has become so commonplace and well understood that it should get an entry in the dictionary? I see abbreviations listed that must be used far less frequently.

    And if it has to be shown that the abbreviation is used isolation to warrant an entry, then what about the rest of the words in the dictionary?  Most words are never used in isolation, but nevertheless still have a coherent meaning.  Why can’t G represent group even though it is usually found with other abbreviations?  Other words are usually found with other words too.

14. PeeDee @13: Different setters and editors will approach abbreviations in different ways.  The example I often use is RAF.  My approach is that whilst this stands for Royal Air Force, you could not use Royal to clue R or Air to clue A as these are not supported as standalone abbreviations in the main dictionaries.  Force for F is ok as it has a separate entry.

    In the case of G in the Dr Who clue, Chambers gives it as an abbreviation for “group of” so that was how I used it in the wordplay.  Views may differ on whether “group” on its own would suffice.  That is part of what make crosswords fun and varied.

    Different dictionaries also have a wide range of recognised abbreviations.  The OED, for example has gas, gelding and Gibbs free energy as options for G that are not mentioned in Chambers or Collins (Collins refers to Gibbs function).  I agree that it can seem arbitrary and there are abbreviations that you think would be in the dictionary but are nowhere to be seen.  A for across and D for down used in crosswords are notably absent as are (as far as I am aware) Y for Yes and N for No despite their use in forms.  Maybe this degree of variation is why the Times (the last time I heard) has a list of permitted abbreviations that setters can use.  It certainly makes life easier for solvers and bloggers, but as a setter, I prefer a little more freedom!

15. Kairos – does the FT, like say The Times or The Listener FT, have a set editorial policy that all setters must adhere to, or is it more like, say, the Guardian where it is much more up to each setter to determine what rules they will and will not follow?  There seems to be a mixture of very strict puzzles and some more libertarian ones.

    I am never quite sure from what perspective to try and explain the clues. Is it varying rules for each setter or is everyone setter in the FT expected to set to the same level of “strictness”?

16. PeeDee, that is a good question.

    I think bloggers should write their blogs as a solver, perhaps at times telling us what they like or don’t like irrespective of technical issues. But preferably, adding a thing like ‘it’s not in the dictionaries’.

    As a solver I cannot be bothered by D = ‘down’ anymore, to name an example.
    There are setters who use it (mainly in The Guardian and, to a lesser extent, in the FT) but personally I would keep far from it. But that’s just the setter in me.
    E = ‘Europe’ appeared in The Observer’s Everyman for the third time this year. I can imagine the solver thinking ‘no problem for me’, it’s clear enough. But it is one of those abbreviations that is not supported by any dictionary.
    I’m just a bit puzzled by a setter who clearly reads the blogs but then does it again and again.

    I have only some experience when it comes to The Independent.
    There is more or less the freedom of using any grid you like to use.
    However, the editor at that place has a personal view on ‘cryptic grammar’, perhaps less strict than at The Times (but a lot more strict than at The Guardian where often ‘anything goes’).
    Not so very long ago, I used B for ‘boy’ and it was rejected (because it was not in the dictionaries).

    Overall, I am totally with Kairos, even if I think his example ‘RAF’ is perhaps not the best: R for ‘Royal’ is in Collins!
    I often use UK.
    K = ‘Kingdom’?
    In a recent post I mentioned what Tim Moorey wrote in the introductory pages of the Chambers Crossword Dictionary. See Pan (Guardian Quiptic, 4 Nov).
    It sums it up for me.

    Good puzzle (not that easy) in which I failed to understand 3d (GOOD).  Perfectly OK, though.

    Many thanks to PeeDee & Kairos.

17. Kairos re me @18 – I meant the Independent in this comment not FT.  I blog the FT every week too was getting confused as to which puzzle I am currently commenting on.  Having said that, the FT also sometimes occupies a shifting middle ground, though less so than the Independent, so the question could reasonably apply to the FT too.

    Sil & Kairos – I try and write my blogs not as a critical commentator but from the point of view of someone trying to help others understand what is going on.  If I have personal axe to grind I try and keep that comments section along with everyone else.

    A typical dilemma is whether to show how “every word in the clue plays a part in the solution, if word is not accounted for then the explanation is incomplete”.  On the other hand there is setting style where it might be more appropriate to explain how “this is an irreverent puzzle here to make us laugh, it doesn’t stick rigidly to any rules”.

    I think of it like explaining a piece of music or a film: before you can explain how the thing works you have to know what genre you are with.  It would be pointless to explain the many ways Carry on Up the Khyber fails as a period drama.

    Where does the Independent (and the FT) stand?  Is it a venue for “serious” puzzles only, or is it something of a variety club?

18. PS – G meaning “group of” is a good example of what I mean by the arbitrariness of “approved” abbreviations.  Chambers lists G meaning “group of ” in the sense of G4, G7 etc.  It is OK for G be used for “group of” even though it is used combination with numbers.  It is not OK for G to be used for “group” because it is used in combination with other letters.

    To me these rules smack of the “men should wear ties in restaurants” type of rule.  Who says this is a rule? The people who believe men should wear ties in restaurants.

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