Independent 10340 / Maize

19 comments on “Independent 10340 / Maize”

1. I thought this was really good.  Unusually for a themed puzzle, the cluing was not at all stilted and there was nothing obscure included (except the TED in 14d, which I imagine is a US invention).   There were far too many good clues to try to nominate a single favourite.

   Many thanks to Maize for a fun puzzle and to Duncan for the detailed review.

    

2. Thanks, Duncan, for an as always excellent blog.  I enjoyed the puzzle too – a theme that didn’t intrude and as Rabbit Dave says, nothing really obscure.

   TED is indeed referring to the online talks by speakers on the subjects that Duncan mentioned.  In the ‘creative’ category, I’d recommend this one, given by John Halpern (Punk here; Paul in Another Place).  Over 4,000 people in one place being entertained and educated about cryptic crosswords for ten minutes.  Well done, that man.

   And well done to Maize for this puzzle.

3. I like Maize’s puzzles and this was really good. i falytered on DAS BOOT(never heard if it-bet its good

4. Wonderful! Thoroughly enjoyed this from start to eventual finish. Lots of “penny drop” moments to get it finished.

   In 16d, I think the TO comes from the “to” in the clue, not the “of”. So HE first (heading) + TO with YPRES before it (first). That’s how I read it anyway.

   I guess nitpickers may have comments on the missing apostrophe in “Oscar’s guards” (18a) but the clue wouldn’t work if it was present.

   Many thanks to Maize and Duncan.

5. I’d like to join the chorus in expressing my admiration for this crossword.

   Difficult in places but absolutely first-class.

   I only thought the ‘periodic’ choice in 21d was not really elegantly done but, hey, it was OK.

   All in all, wonderful clueing, full of imagination.

   Many thanks to Duncan & Maize.

    

    

6. @5Hovis the clue reads “Oscars guard”, meaning two “Os” guard “hi”.

   A brilliant puzzle, one of the very best for some time.

   Thanks to Monk for this cracker and to duncanshiell for the blog.

7. I mean @4Hovis.

8. And you mean Maize?  🙂

9. gwep@6. I understand this. That is why I said the clue wouldn’t work with the apostrophe. But for the surface reading it surely refers to Oscar’s guard (or Oscars’ guard).

10. Hovis @ 9: think Hollywood: “That person is the Oscars guard”.

11. The Ohio class is the USN’s SSBN, and I can’t help but think Evade and Escape isn’t a coincidence.

    And HMS Ranger was the (fictional) RN submarine in The Spy Who Loved Me…

12. Thanks for comments and to Duncan for another of his wonderfully comprehensive blogs.
    Hovis has 16d as I’d intended, with TO from the clue indeed. In 18a the image I was attempting to conjure up was as Simon S @10 has it.
    As for Escape, Ranger, Evade, Ursa and Maple, all but the first (which vaguely alludes to escape hatch) are entirely coincidental.

13. We twigged the theme although we didn’t get all the references, needed a wordfinder for ORCHIDS (Doh!) and took ages to see the parsing of TAKE HEART – even though we’d encountered a clue not long ago which required one to insert TT into ‘beer’ to make beer better (can’t remember the exact wording).

    We liked YELLOW SUBMARINE, ADEQUATE and CENTRIFUGE among others.

    Thanks, Maize and Duncan.

14. Ok. Personally, if someone was a guard of/at the Oscars I would write Oscars’ guard but I’m known to be wrong. A minor point (if one at all). So I’ll just sign off by re-iterating what a wonderful crossword this was.

15. In another example of morphic resonance among setters, both YELLOW SUBMARINE and BOATY MCBOATFACE appeared in Goliath’s FT 16314 of 2/11/19.

    I’m not suggesting plagiarism or anything like that, it’s surprising how things like this happen – for instance, a couple of years ago, STEVEDORES appeared about 4 times in 3 months, and then there were several variations on KO/KAYO etc within a similar time period. Chaos theory in action?

16. Simon @15 – I hadn’t realised – Eek! Will go and check it out now 🙂

    Maybe it’s not too surprising though, with Boaty McBoatface being in the news recently – being 15 letters long I think a lot of setters will have noticed that.

    Fwiw, this grid has been languishing in my computer since the poll for a name conducted in 2016 by the Antarctic Survey (also 15 letters) and that recent launch of RRS Sir David Attenborough prompted me to dust it off.

17. Thanks to duncanshiell and Maize

    I remember doing the FT puzzle so a couple of these were write-ins, but that takes nothing away from a very clever and enjoyable puzzle.

18. Another fine puzzle from Maize that I found to be moderately challenging. Having spotted the theme I half expected to get stuck on something I knew nothing about, but the only one I really didn’t know was 14/15, which was eminently solvable. So thanks for an enjoyable offering that raised a smile or two along the way.

19. Maize @ 16 – sorry, I think I left out an ‘often’ between ‘how’ and ‘things’.

    It may be the way my mind works, but particular clues/solutions lodge in my otherwise forgettory, and if they occur again something is triggered.

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