Independent 10,566 by Gila

18 comments on “Independent 10,566 by Gila”

1. Had no issue with 7d but did struggle with several tenuous definitions. I would include small for young, as in 19a, with those cited in the blog. Was pleased to work out LEDERHOSEN as my loi. Given the meaning of “touching cloth” (at least where I come from) the surface of 4d doesn’t bear thinking about.

   Your criticism of 29a is one I frequently make. The surface “Rude material corporations rejected” would be far better. Don’t understand why setters keep doing this.

   Thanks to Gila and Quirister.

2. Hovis @1: yes, I wondered about small = young, but I think “a small child” and “a young child” are more or less synonymous.

3. I thought this was a mixed bag with some very good clues and some rather dubious, the worst offenders being 13a (dodgy definition) & 29a (ambiguous).

   Thanks to Gila and to Quirister.

4. A bit of a struggle. A few such as MALL and ITCH went in unparsed, along with RESPONSIVE which I was just too lazy to spend long thinking about. Couldn’t agree more with your and Hovis’ comments re 29a, one of my bugbears too.

   Still plenty of clues to enjoy, my picks being FIST for ‘Duke’, which I didn’t pick straight away and the image of the ‘Authority figure’ whooping it up in his/her LEDERHOSEN.

   Thanks to Gila and Quirister

5. Quirister @2. Funnily enough, I thought about small child = young child but dismissed it on the lines that it is more a comment on size than age. Indeed, referring to a child as “small” is usually said to indicate smaller than average for his/her age. So, still not keen but recognise you tend to “grow” older so size is often at least an indicator of age.

6. Hovis @5

   The second definition in Chambers for ‘small’ is “young” and Collins has “(of a child or animal) young; not mature”.

7. Got off to a bad start by not knowing the French film and – back in the day – junior Scouts were known as Cubs!   Not many other issues although the parsing of 7d was something of a mystery and I wasn’t very persuaded by 13a.

   Unlike others, I had 29a down as favourite.

   Thanks to Gila and to Quirister for the review.

8. Struggled with this, and DNF as failed on 22A.  I too think talent = nous is too much of a stretch.  But thanks anyway to Gila and Quirister.

    

9. I too was annoyed by 29 – not least ’cause I put it in the wrong way round!

   Clues really should not be amibiguous except, perhaps, by accident.

   That said the surface of 20 was so nice that I was left smiling so thanks to Gila and Quinster.

10. In the end, I needed a word search to get 19dn.  Just couldn’t see it.  I also couldn’t parse 7dn.

    No mention of the slang meaning of 4dn?  When I had four letters ending in T, I’m afraid my mind immediately went there

11. Dormouse. I did allude to it @1

12. So you did.  I thought I’d read that but my eyes must have skimmed it.

13. Good puzzle in what – I guess – is still the Monday style for the Indy.

    I will add my quibblet about the ambiguity of SMUT and TUMS.  Same thing happens when the setter puts the homophone indicator as the middle element.

    I will also add my name to the list of those who smirked at ‘touched cloth’.

    Thanks to Quirister for blogging and Gila for the entertainment.

14. We found this a bit tricky and needed two sessions to complete.  We couldn’t parse 7dn, and were held up on 19ac by putting ‘distrust’ for 19dn – that was the word which first occurred to us and we saw the ‘card’ as ID, only spotting our error when we realised we hadn’t accounted for an S.

    We liked DALESMAN, LEDERHOSEN and SERPENTINE.

    Jane@7: Junior Scouts are still called Cubs – the Beavers are even more junior.

    Thanks, Gila and Quirister.

15. Thanks Q and Gila took two takes this one. Both were flying runs but the first ground to a halt in several places. Lederhosen took a while because i was convinced that trousers was a containment indicator.

16. In Chambers the definitions given for Responsive (adj) are:
    1: Ready to respond
    2: Answering
    3: Correspondent
    4: With responses

    I find it hard to come up with a sentence in which I can swap the two – so maybe that use of correspondent has faded – but it is there.

17. I might well have been thinking about this for too long… but Collins offers this for ‘responsive’

    A responsive action is made as a reaction to something that has just been said or done.
    “At hearing his name spoken, the dog gave a responsive wag of his tail.”

    And I think
    “At hearing his name spoken, the dog gave a correspondent wag of his tail.” means the same thing.

    An action in response to – corresponding with – something else is responsive/correspondent.

    Phew

18. Thanks Bluth – that’s roughly how I was trying to justify it, but I couldn’t quite get there. So it’s valid, though I think it’s still fairly obscure.

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