Independent 7,425 by Radian

23 comments on “Independent 7,425 by Radian”

1. Thanks Simon,
   Not so much because of the grid, but all the numbers from one to ten appear, in order, in the across answers (with nine carrying over from Rani to Nectary).

2. Thank you Simon. I got quite a few on the first pass, but as usual Radian proved too hard for me – I had to give up with about a quarter of the clues left, mostly the unfamiliar words where I couldn’t get enough crossing letters to help with the wordplay. All fair though – just tough.

   Sadly I am old enough to be able to explain 18ac. 10p was two shillings in old money, a quarter of which was a sixpence. I remember that sixpence bought you a sizeable poke of chips when I were a lad.

3. Hi many thanks to Radian for the entertaining puzzle and to Simon for the blog.
   Re 18a a ‘sixpence’ in old money was worth a half of a ‘shilling’ (twelve pence in old money) and a quarter of a ‘florin’ (which was two shillings, hence 24 pence). After decimalization the florin became the new 10p coin, so the old sixpence was still worth a quarter of that (2.5p in new money)!

4. Thanks Simon.
   Also KD, thanks for the explanation. I got a bit distracted by the “quarter”, but fortunately it was superfluous to the solution. I knew it was a quarter of something, but my reference period was when 12p (or d, in the old LSD nomenclature) = 1 shilling, 20 shillings = 1 pound, 2s6d = half a crown, and thus sixpence and quarter didn’t fit with any of these.

5. Thanks Mike, my comment crossed with yours.
   Of course, I forgot about the florin!

6. K’s D, you are younger than I thought. In my day chips were 3d 4d or 5d.

7. I’m sorry everyone; chips were sold by the penneth.
   Several tough words. Electronic help for me too.
   Last in was RIGHTFUL, but I didn’t spot the missing F.
   RAIL proved annoying.

8. Thanks Simon.
   Lovely puzzle from Radian,with one completely new word for me(VIBRIO),but quite gettable from the wordplay.
   Apart from 18 across,younger solvers might fail to understand BIFFO(or is the Beano stil going?).
   NEEM(or nim)crops up fairly often in barred puzzles,being the tree under which Lord Buddha gained enlightenment.
   I guess 16 across was probably referring to the aircraft rather than Rubin”Hurricane”Carter,but the clue works nicely either way.
   Thought EBULLIENT was brilliant and also liked the anagram at 12 down – well spotted Radian!
   Thought there must be something going on with numbers but didn’t spot them all – thanks Ian@1.

9. Scarpia: Bishop’s square got me the F too. Then had to guess the rest.
   All those numbers! – How clever.

10. Thanks for the blog, Simon. Enjoyed this puzzle, noticed the numbers about half way through and that helped me finish. The theme forced some unusual words into the grid, but this did not make it harder for me than the Indy normally is because the wordplay in those cases was quite easy and the theme helped as well. Favourite clue, PRETTY.

11. A complete mental collapse on how to spell bhaji held me up a bit. I kept trying bahji and bajhi but neither seemed right. Eventually I had to go on the internet and search for onion b.. to find it. Other than that, I didn’t find it too difficult. I went searching for the NINA with about 4 left and that helped with sixpence and oneiric.

12. When I’m doing crosswords online [not that often, I admit], I usually start with the shorter words – in this case: 1d, 9ac, 6d and 22ac.
    And look at that! They were all hidden answers (back or forth).
    Remembered RANI from a recent Araucaria, in which it was part of a geranium.

    I must say everything fell rather quickly in place after that, even though I had never heard of VIBRIO, ONEIRIC and TANAGERS [but they were perfectly gettable].
    Maybe it went so well, because I am pretty familiar nowadays with this setter’s style [in both his aliases], so I knew where or what to look for.

    I should even have looked somewhat better, though!
    Didn’t spot the numbers [well, apart from FIVE and SEVEN, of course].
    Shame on me.

    I needed your fine blog [thank you, Simon] for the full explanation of SIXPENCE [yes, the second part is superfluous, though probably added for the surface which would otherwise point in the direction of a non-&lit] and for STRUNG UP (4d).
    The SW corner troubled me the most, although two words there, TANAGERS and PRETTY, belong to my favourites today.
    [a third one being RIGHTFUL (2d)]

    I think this was a smashing crossword, in which Radian used two or three unusual devices. “Essentially” (in 23d) for taking the middle letter is probably well-known, but I can’t remember having come across it before. And, in 21d (FRET), “occasionally” for taking a regular part of the clue, didn’t I see that in a Crucible once?
    EBULLIENT was another superb clue, NEILL backwards in TUBE, both unchanged but still well-hidden.
    The only thing with it is, that the clue reads “Neill’s taken the underground”. “A taking B” normally means ‘A then B’ or ‘B inside A’. Not here though.
    I took this as ‘Neill’s taken the tube’, so he’s literally in it now, which is – if this is what Radian means – rather unusual but amusing.

13. I meant to mention the reuse of RANI.
    And didn’t we have TUBE as underground recently – and backwards?

14. So THAT’S why the words got tough. Mind you, the across clues were made a lot easier by me spotting the ongoing joke. Clever stuff by Radian.

15. I’m generally not one for complaining – and this was a great puzzle – but isn’t the otherwise excellent 12D ruined by the word ‘in’? The wordplay ‘cooked in hijab’ implies use of those 2 letters as well, no?

16. Don’t get the RM for magistrates, but never been in a court. Didn’t find it too tough, a pint and a half’er after work tonight. Some new words to me like some previous commenters and didn’t have internet access whilst doing it so relied on Radian’s subsiduary bits. Age, hah we still thrupenny bits when I were a lad, bloody flybynights! OK not for long I’ll admit. Did wonder where NINE was for a second or two and thought I’d made a mistake…

17. Hi Phil –

    Yeah, I had to take a leap of faith with RM as well, but I checked before blogging and was relieved to find it right there in Chambers as “Resident Magistrate” – with no further elucidation, sadly.

18. I suspect Radian might have been familiar with Maria Edgeworth’s 19th century book “Adventures of an Irish RM”.

19. Lots of good stuff, but I think everyone is being a bit lenient: tempo for time (OK tempo = time and time = t, but, at least in a crossword clue, it doesn’t follow that tempo = t) in 15ac, the ‘in’ in 12dn, e for euros in 23dn (who said?), and ‘taking’ as an inclusion indicator in 11dn all struck me as rather weak. And as many as four hidden or hidden reversed.

    But a very clever Nina, which I missed.

20. Yes, Wil, you’re probably right.
    T for ‘tempo’ and E for ‘euro’ are two of these (one letter) building stones that Radian finds quite useful, but which are both questionnable.
    I can see the euro-sign as an E [and therefore EE for euros], but … well, maybe Radian himself can tell us where to find them.

    In 11d ‘taking’ wasn’t an insertion indicator in the way it sometimes is [see my post #12] – I say ‘sometimes’, because most of the time ‘A taking B’ is ‘A then B’.
    But here it is even the other way around – which I found amusing for the reason given [that is, if that’s the right reason].

    Despite all this, this puzzle had the right ‘feel’ for me.
    And I’m therefore happy to be a bit lenient.
    [not sure whether that’s right or not]

21. OED has:
    Abbreviations: for various proper names, as Thomas, Timothy, Titus, Theresa, etc.; T Mus., tasto, tempo, tenor, tutti; T officially stamped on a letter, taxed, i.e. postage to be paid; T (Physics) = TERA-; T (Physics) = TESLA; T in a ship’s log-book, thunder; T Math., time, terms, etc.; T (Physics and Chem.) = TRITIUM; t (Physics), top or truth, a quark flavour;

    Can’t see it for TEMPO in Chambers – nor for TIME!

22. T for “tempo” is confirmed by Collins. I fear that my copy predates the Euro however, though it knows all about the ECU, which is a blast from the past!

23. Ali @15: I can accept the ‘in’ as I didn’t read it as HIJAB being ‘cooked’ but that the answer, BHAJI, was ‘cooked’ in the word HIJAB.

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