Independent 12,044 by Phi

13 comments on “Independent 12,044 by Phi”

1. Not sure whether it’s me or Phi suffering from double vision today. Like our blogger, I wondered if there was a significance but can see nothing. I’d agree there are a few less familiar words – I was unable to get the interlinked WILD and (horrible) INDWELT. I am often defeated by the ‘turn a letter upside down’ instruction so the former never occurred and, hence, I never had the fodder for the latter.

   HOUGH was a vague memory which Chambers confirmed as a Thing. Other than those, everything else solved OK. ARISTIDES probably my fave today.

   Thanks Phi and Quirister

2. My faves: ASSAM, ARISTIDES and INDWELT.
   WILD: Parsed it with some difficulty. Got the answer first and then back-parsed it. Only one character that could
   be inverted to make sense.

   Thanks Phi and Quirister.

3. I liked APOCALYPSE and SCENERY. I feel sure there’s a poem underlying this, with a few poetic words and the vision. CHEPSTOW made me wonder about “Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey”. There are a couple of words but not enough to make a theme. Still it was good to read it again.

4. It seems a rather bizarre collection of words, and quite an “awkward” puzzle, such that I get the sense there must be an elusive theme or message. It’s beyond my ken, to unearth anything.
   Is it unfair to call this a workmanlike compilation? I didn’t have any major dislikes, ( maybe “South Central” in 6(d) to provide “SCEN; the double VISION; and INDWELT 3(d) is a truly awful word ). It all felt a bit like Phi in second-gear.
   I liked the M/W letter inversion in 9(ac), but blow me, I initially opted for MILD, which made the NW corner a tartar,( due to anagram ).
   Thanks to P + Q

5. INDWELT is certainly poetic/religious usage but can’t see a theme. Found this quite difficult but fair once I’d revealed the last few. Didn’t spot the inverted character of course. LYONESSE was a write in, due to a lifelong love of Arthurian legends. Must find my mother’s copy of Tennyson and reread the Idylls of the King. Perhaps Phi’s theme is hidden in there. Thanks Phi and Quirister.

6. Like ENB @4 I flipped the w to get mild, reversed by indwelt which took ages, a real shoehorn. Sedgemoor a vague bell, and hough a nho, but both well signposted. The sunken one, otoh, was a shuffle and guess. Good challenge, ta Phi and Q.

7. I wonder if it’s Hardy? There’s a poem called “When I set out for Lyonesse” and another about a tramp woman walking across Sedgemoor???

8. Thanks both. Didn’t really get along with this, which simply says it did not play to my strengths, and I often doubt if I had or have any. ARISTIDES was clearly clued, but very Greek to me, as is FADO notwithstanding it’s Portuguese leaning, and INDWELT so unfathomable I only got it at about tenth guess. To cap it all, I too had mild for WILD, and have gone three-quarters insane since trying to convince myself I followed the instruction in the clue correctly.

9. Well, I fairly raced through this (a rare occurrence with any setter) until my last two. Yes, those two. Eventually got WILD and the right idea, but still couldn’t convince myself INDWELT was a word. Looked like something I could blame Wagner for. Still, great fun as ever, and thanks to Phi and Quirister

10. VISON and VISIONARY was annoying but the theme was a very specific set of words. I tried to make sure the definitions were as far apart as they could be.

    Jayjay @9 is closer than perhaps they know: it’s Wagner’s father-in-law Franz Liszt and his Transcendental Studies. I think I have included all the ones where there’s a usable English term (+ Eroica). Petert @7 may want to keep his eyes open over the next few puzzles.

    It’s what comes of pondering sleeve notes while listening.

11. Signs of a misspent youth: the phrase “mild to wild” in a personal ad in the gay newspapers (back when they were a thing) meant “open to kinky sex, but not exclusively”, so that one was easy for me. Remember placing ads that charged by the letter? Me neither (whistles idly).

12. And to our bloggers query: yes, audio disc (sometimes spelled as one word) is a phrase that’s out there. It is actually old enough to pre-date the CD (it started as a synonym for LP).

13. MrP@11 yes, I remember those days. Seems to me, the need to reduce letters to the bare minimum, to save money, was the forerunner of today’s ” text speak” ?
    The “code phrases/acronyms” in lonely hearts ads were a mystery to me, but I enjoyed reading them, often to try to spot the ones placed by my sister, which nobody was supposed to know about!
    My word, she was good at fiction.
    I also seem to recall, telegrams were similarly priced, not by letter, but by the word, which seems a bit daft. And why dictate the word “stop”, instead of using [ . ]? May be morse code was the issue.

Comments are closed.