Independent 10,903 by Bluth

20 comments on “Independent 10,903 by Bluth”

1. Loved this. Lots of clever stuff. I liked the different uses of “Small farm” in 23a & 26d. I also didn’t particularly like NINE. Its position at 11 made me think of a recent tragic anniversary. I cheated to get SOUND and failed to parse DECLAIM, having totally forgotten “decal”.

2. Some very convoluted wordplay as usual from Bluth, but great fun as always.

   11A was disappointing I agree, but was more than made up for elsewhere. Too many ticks to mention them all!

   I too stared at -o-a- for a good while, thinking it has be a play on moray but how? PDM in spades there.

   Thanks Bluth and Quirister

3. I should have also admitted to failing the parsing of EDDY. I’m a Brit and I didn’t know the leader of the Liberal party.

4. Spent a long time on those elusive two missing letters for 11a and eventually bunged in an incorrect ‘nina’ as a guess. No hope of being able to parse that one, or indeed EDDY. I’m not a Brit and don’t know the current leader of the UK Liberal party – I still think of Jeremy Thorpe, but that was a long time ago.

   Lots that I liked and was able to parse though. Favourites, in no particular order, were CYCLE LANE, DECLAIM, AIRCRAFT-CARRIER and the ‘Attempt to change eel’s gender’ for FORAY.

   Thanks to Bluth and Quirister

5. Another clever and enjoyable crossword from Bluth. Thanks to him and Quirister

6. Spent too long trying to fit Charles Kennedy (the last and only Liberal leader I can recall) into the wordplay before entering EDDY unparsed. There were several other solutions whose parsing took some time to emerge, but that’s what puzzles are all about! Thanks, Quirister and Bluth, for another cracking jaunt.

7. Enjoyed this, thanks Bluth and Quirister, also the interesting little French and Saunders backstory on Twitter which I’ve just seen

8. Hovis @3: that about sums up the positioning of the Lib Dems, I’m afraid. And I suffered from exactly the same problem with the same result.

   I’m not claiming a magnetic personality but I have been attracted to a couple of ‘iron’ clues this week and FAKED certainly appealed. CYCLE LANE fortunately came after ELAN which helped but it’s a lovely clue, as were DUFFEL BAGS, CREW NECKS and the glorious anagram for SECONDARY SCHOOLS. But COTD goes to AIRCRAFT CARRIER: a cracking charade and how clever to incorporate the classic horror movie! Finally, I always enjoy an ELK.

   Quirister – yes, you would refer to a single member of the Wasps club/team as a WASP. And similarly for a member of any other team either named or nicknamed in similar fashion. A (Leicester) tiger, a (Worcester) warrior, a Harlequin.

   Thanks Bluth and Quirister

9. Thanks Bluth and Quirister. I share your opinion entirely on the highlights and lowlights of this one, though I hope poor unloved Ed Davey doesn’t read these comments – he’ll be crushed. I hesitated to write in NINE until I had some crossing letters, thinking it couldn’t possibly be that obvious, could it? Like Hovis @1, I enjoyed the different uses of “small farm”.

   I spent some time perusing a surprisingly long list of Chuck’s honours and titles (all well-deserved, I’m sure) before the penny dropped on 7d thanks to the recollection of CARRIE. Nice clue.

10. Thanks Quirister, didn’t know why IRIS was right and I just couldn’t get past GO for tries and thus never got FORAY, also didn’t parse EDDY although I have heard of Ed Davey, just didn’t twig. I thought FLY HALF was very cheeky (not many wasps are rugby players and not many rugby players are fly halves except in our dreams!) and also agree re the other extremities, with KON TIKI my top choice. But while thanking Bluth for a very enjoyable and tricky challenge I have to curse him in the same breath for reminding me of the nadir of old Dr Who in the clue for ELAN (despite a noble attempt to atone with the clever CYCLE LANE).

11. A lot of this was very clever indeed. However, I could not solve NINE and would have had no hope of understanding it. Didn’t know the Liberal politician either but just bunged in the answer. I did remember the Wasps though!

12. Thanks for the blog, Quirister. I’m slightly surprised by the idea that my early puzzles “almost always included some sort of theme or Nina, but not so much recently”… I think today was my 27th appearance as Bluth and by my reckoning, only 5 have contained themes and/or Ninas! And certainly my first handful didn’t have any.

    Thanks for the kind words. Fair criticism on NINE, I think. I obviously thought the complete two-word phrase had sufficient currency to lead the mind elsewhere but that’s evidently not the case for most.

    Still… somewhere in between Alliacol’s never-would-have-got-it and everyone else’s can-it-really-be-that-simple sits an imaginary solver who finds it mildly diverting before it lands.

    Cheers all.

13. PostMark@8 If you were a Pole, you might be. I enjoyed this, though I am not fond of grids where you get two crossers for a five letter clue. Thanks, both.

14. 13a seems over complicated to me. My parsing was Fr= french, et is and in french. Fret is to worry more than once = frequently. Simple if the definition is worry frequently.

15. Bluth @12: fair enough, I stand corrected re themes. Perhaps I just remember the themed puzzles more – especially one (number 10,740) with both a theme and a related Nina, which was outstanding.

16. Bill @14: yes, I thought that at first, but it requires “French” to do double duty (for the abbreviation / for the translation of “and”), which is generally frowned upon.

17. Hi Bluth@12, I think NINE would have been fair game for UK residents (i.e., most solvers of the Indy probably), but in the US there’s no TV cutoff. Since you’re so devious with definitions I thought a watershed moment might refer to a downpour. Then I wondered about entering Nina, thinking that I had perhaps missed a theme. Anyway, lots of fun. Forgot to thank Quirister in my last post — apologies. The blog was, as ever, excellent.

18. Thanks to Bluth for what was a really challenging crossword.
    Near the end, I got EDDY and ENDORSE without seeing how they worked.
    I should have got the parsing of EDDY, though.
    I’m a ‘politico’, so Ed Davey shouldn’t have been a problem.
    I failed on 14dn (FORAY) and I don’t think I would have found the answer, not even by the time it got dark …
    But I mostly liked the puzzle.
    Mostly, because Bluth sometimes writes clues that, for me, have the feeling of being a bit cobbled together – in other words, sort of not ‘deft’ enough.
    For example, in 32ac (PERIL) Bluth uses more than half of the clue [completely fading a little shirt] just to ask us to delete S. Somehow, that annoys me. But that’s probably only me.
    On the other hand, clues like 4ac, 25ac and 7dn are the ones that make my heart beat faster.
    Finally, I was surprised to see our setter using E = ‘Europe’ because it’s not (as a standalone abbreviation).
    It makes for a good surface in 17dn but E is really ‘European’.
    Also surprised to see eimi apparently giving the green light.
    But hey, altogether a fine crossword, just not totally ‘my style’. It is as it is, I’m afraid.
    Many thanks to Quirister (for the excellent blog) & Bluth (for letting my braincells and my senses working overtime).

19. I didn’t find 11a as disappointing as some here. 7d is a strong contender for CotD, but just pipped by 14d – I too got seduced by GO***, and was trying to think how a gonad could fit the wordplay! Liked the wasp and the expedition too.
    It’s a sad comment on the current state of things that I could not recall the name of the liberal politician 🙁
    Cheers Bluth!

20. Forgot to say, thank you also to quirister for the helpful blog.
    I also had been wondering about the double duty in FRET; have not come across ‘fr.’ for ‘frequently’ before.

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