Independent 8764 by Nimrod (Saturday Prize Puzzle 15 November 2014)

23 comments on “Independent 8764 by Nimrod (Saturday Prize Puzzle 15 November 2014)”

1. I was at a science fiction convention last weekend and started this in the bar when two friends, both keen solvers came over and decided to help. Well, I was struggling but so were they. We only got about half done and didn’t spot the theme.

   Finally finished it mid-week but there were many I couldn’t parse, including 12ac. I’m sure we parsed 29ac and 23dn last week, but blowed if I can remember how.

2. I think NIMBUS could be a compound anagram/indirect charade with “are” of submarine.

   ODDS is alternate letters of “worded as” (without odds = odds).

   I can’t quite see how the wordplay leads to either of these devices, but I think they are correct.

   I don’t understand BLACKADDER either.

   I enjoyed this a lot. Thanks for the blog too – I see how GARBO works now!

3. I now see that “are underwater drains rising” is an instruction to drain “are” from submarine (underwater), reversed (rising).

4. For the first time in many weeks I gave up on this one after solving only ten clues, all in the bottom half. I did, however, enter ODDS and NIMBUS parsing them as Muffyword @2 and @3 and surely BIRDS EYE at 28a is just an anagram of “by eiders”. I also thought 12a must be BLACKADDER just from the definition but didn’t enter it as I had no cross-checkers and couldn’t see how to parse it.

   Thanks mc_rapper67 for the enlightment.

5. I assumed BLACKADDER was a snooker reference – getting a black in a break adds 7 points.

   Couldn’t get the parsing of 7D, and I see why, and NIMBUS seems a bit awkward.

   This felt more like an Inquisitor than a normal crossword, which was a bit unsettling. Perhaps they could have paired it with one of the recent easier IQs!

6. Sadly but interestingly, it was only when I got SCARLET and started singing the theme tune (see I told you it was sad) that I spotted that a couple of the other solutions were indeed ‘captains’. Took me quite a while to solve it all but the usual satisfaction with reaching the end of a testing Nimrod.

   Thanks to Nimrod for the crossword and mc_rapper for the explanations.

7. Way beyond me, got about three, not helped by trying to solve online where the ‘ones’ weren’t obvious at first.

   NABOB is AB, jack-tar in NOB, the jack in cribbage. Otherwise you’d have to solve it before working out what the container part was.

8. Thanks to S & B,
   Very hard for me. Eventually missed out on 5d and 7d (never would have got the latter) with a few others I couldn’t parse including 12 which I agree refers to snooker points as noted by OPatrick @5. Really too tough to be enjoyable but I appreciate the clever clueing from Nimrod. The blog was also v. helpful and blogger and responders have now cleared everything up.
   Incidentally GARBO is generally only used for a garbage collector, rather than rubbish itself, though I see Chambers also has the latter meaning. This put me off and I was thinking of other famous Victorians with 5 letter surnames starting with ‘G’. Our Germs came to mind though I don’t think the Great Lady would take too kindly to be associated with rubbish or being called an actress!
   Thanks again.

9. Incidentally, in the clue for 13A “One of the other 13 and 13 of the other ones” the ‘one of the other 13’ I think refers to 13D: COS, CAPTAIN being one of the Commanding Officers (COs).

10. 28A is also, of course, an anagram of ‘by eiders’ – I hadn’t actually noticed that the cryptic definition worked literally as well. Can’t deny that Nimrod fashions some clever clues.

11. …as I see Howard has already pointed out @4.

12. Thanks for all the comments and feedback – and to various people above for suggesting some of the missing (and incorrect) parsings. I get the feeling this was quite hard work for most, and my brain was aching so much towards the end that I just couldn’t see some of these – which look obvious now, when explained!

13. I really liked this (though unsure how much I enjoyed it as I derived more pleasure from its completion than from its completion….if you see what I mean?!) BLACKADDER remained unparsed (I had “break” as part of definition, foolishly imaging the brilliantly poignant final scene where the characters break ‘over the top’) so thanks to OPatrick for, now obvious, Snooker reference.
    I was fortunate in getting the BIRDSEYE anagram early from which the ‘captain’ theme followed. Otherwise, I might have found this even tougher.
    Was it too clever by half? Well it was certainly clever.
    Well done – and thanks – to Nimrod. And well done to mc_rapper67! Respect to both.

14. @13William F P, yes too clever by about half for me.

    25D GARBO is the Oz equivalent of the “dustman” of my UK youth. Never heard it in Oz as referring to the garbage itself.

15. We had a few answers pencilled in which turned out to be correct but 30ac was left blank. Perhaps if we had been home with more internet access we would have perservered but perhaps that’s just a lame excuse!

    23ac and 12ac were two that we solved without being able to parse – we’re not sure we’d have ever worked those out! 1ac took a while and brought a smile when Bert realised who the Police chief was.

    Thanks Nimrod and well done to mc_rapperfor the blog.

16. I was one of the other Dormouse@1 referred to – not having a copy for myself, didn’t do any more subsequently, but I remember we did parse 29ac & 23dn like Muffyword@2 & @3

17. Hard, hard!

    Don’t really see where the definition for 11ac is though the answer was clear (unless LISP is wrong, of course).
    Thanks to OPatrick for the explanation of 12ac.
    7dn also had me beaten for an explanation – but there my lack of knowledge of cricket didn’t help.

    We reckoned in 23dn ‘drop by drop’ clarified that the letters of ‘are’ weren’t contiguous in ‘submarine’.

    Enjoyable all the same. We got all the answers just not why for the ones already mentioned.

    Thanks to all.

18. Self-referential key clue made this too hard for me to enjoy at all.
    The other clues make little sense without knowing the key.
    How does ‘swing yes and no’ define a see-saw which doesn’t swing at all as far as I know?
    The (a) / (b) business in 7D doesn’t work for me either. I’d expect ‘this’ to refer to the whole answer not just part of it.
    Surely in 29A WITHOUT them it’s worded as doesn’t work either as ‘worded as’ includes the odd letters.
    …and while I’m having a whinge I don’t like CARD as a verb either!

19. redddevil@18 re 5dn:
    I think the point here is that SEESAW as a verb means the same as swing, but as a noun it does not.

20. Glad I didn’t draw this one. I finally gave up on this with about six answers written in after several weeks. I like a challenge, but there has to be some way in. A bit of a waste of time, quite frankly.

21. What a waste of time this one was.
    If I had rang the phone number for
    “stuck on the cryptic crossword “ At 80p plus network charge, it would have cost me minimum of £44. Or is this why they publish these sort of of mind bogglers ??

22. Cor! What a scorcher! Took two G&Ts and a meal to get through this one. Had Blackadder (why so hard to parse), Maryatt, Birdseye, Oates and Scarlet before the penny dropped … felt that 13A should be “one of the 13Ds”, though forgot that in the excitement od potting the theme and filling in blanks. So thanks to OPatrick (9) for pointing our that 13A is not, in fact, self-referential. But thanks to mc_rapper67 for a valiant blog of a testing puzzle and to Nimrod for some mysterious variations …

23. @22: “spotting” not “potting”, despite 12A. And I forgot to mention the invaluable contribution of my other half (and 13A). So it was really 4 G&Ts.

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