Rookie Corner – 295

39 comments on “Rookie Corner – 295”

1. Just a couple of points we are unsure of. Don’t understand the wordplay with 5a and in 22a the computer program looks to have one more letter than is given in BRB.
   Those aside, we found it a very enjoyable solve with a special tick going for 15d.
   Thanks Umber

   1. 5a – for nothing = free, six games = set, as in tennis but not entirely accurate as a set is the first player to win six games provided the other player has won no more than four games. Hope that helps.

      1. That is 5d you have explained. We had that. It was 5a we were wondering about but think we now have it sussed.

         1. Oops.
            Yes, 5a, tongue in cheek competition to reduce staff numbers.

   2. Hello, 2K.

      Because the managers are known worldwide I thought the clue might not be too difficult. The clue I thought you might not completely get was the Whitehall in question in 23d

      As for the computer programme, I have to admit I Googled it as I couldn’t find my BRB (that is probably out of date by now anyway). With my (67th) birthday and Christmas within two days of one another, I think I’ll add a new BRB to my list of suggestions when the usual difficult questions are asked!

2. Typo in 18a. Fodder error in 8d.
   I liked 5d, 20d, 9a, although I’d’ve thought Amber might be more likely to be pear-shaped than bream? 17d made me tut at myself when the penny dropped. Might need to see the review for a couple of parsings.
   Cheers Umber.

   1. Isn’t the first ‘pear-shaped’ the anagram indicator (with bream got as the material)? But, I agree amber would probably be better than bream.

   2. Just seen the mistakes in 18a and 8d (was originally ‘Climber to mail sect by mistake’ but didn’t look right so changed it in a hurry) and can kick myself for not seeing Amber! It all sums up my impulsive, careless personality.

      Thanks, TV, you’re a star.

      1. Cheers. (Although apparently, I’m a pentagon. )

3. Very enjoyable, my favourite has to be 17d.
   A couple of comments:
   14a is a US term (indicated as US inf in the BRB) so should have some indication in the clue.
   I don’t think that 28a is a herb, neither does the BRB which says it is a vegetable.
   Thanks Umber.

   1. Thanks, Senf.

      As I wrote 14a for a GU crossword competition years ago, and no one pointed out it was a US term (the competition was just to write a normal cryptic clue for it) I didn’t think to check it this time, other to see if it was hyphenated or not.

      I’m surprised but delighted that 17d would be liked so much because I thought it would be deemed too easy.

      I think I used Herb for Herbert without thinking to make sure. On reflection, ‘Lace rice pudding with vegetable’ might have read better anyway.

      Thanks again.

4. Hi Umber,
   Some good clues here – well done! I particularly marked 7d, 12a, 17d (I feel I’ve seen this one before), 4d & 20d. There are a few where the wordplay is fine but the surface reading doesn’t seem too meaningful – e.g. 5d, 21d (where the wordplay is particularly neat) and 25a. And other commenters have covered the minor errors already so I won’t repeat those.
   A fun solve – many thanks.
   -Encota-

   Other Notes taken whilst solving (feel free to ignore):
   2d ‘drops’ and certainly ‘office’ feel like surface padding here
   9a nice ‘pear’ re-use
   19d is the definition accurate?
   15d a very gentle cryptic clue
   27a the ‘synonym’ for somewhat doesn’t feel quite right
   23d ok, though a more meaningful set of five words must surely be available?
   22a Didn’t get the computer program: ah, the Unix command!
   16d goat=1st 3 letters? not sure
   11a this reversal indicator is probably better used in a Down clue
   26a LOI. Though close, this homophone won’t work for many people.

   1. Thanks, Encota. Having looked again at the clues I completely agree with all your queries. I wasn’t entirely sure about most you mentioned but thought the best test was to leave them in and wait for the comments.

      17d is a reused clue of mine, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it had used by someone else as it seemed a rather obvious clue to write, if a bit easy to solve for seasoned solvers.

      14a is also a reused clue (the GU competition winner I mentioned) and is the clue I thought might be recognised.

      23d seemed apt at the time I submitted the puzzle as it was during the ‘great’ BREXIT debacle in Parliament.

      Thanks again. I’ll probably wait for Prolixic’s comments before responding to anyone else’s.

5. An enjoyable crossword which flowed very nicely (which is something I like to experience when solving cryptic crosswords)

   I won’t go into too much detail with my quibbles (we must leave something for Prolixic to write about!) but I’m not sure the definition in 1a is correct, I wondered whether ‘out’ in 25a would be better as ‘off’ and I’m not sure I entirely understand how I get 23d. Oh and, still having quite a lot of 28a in the veg patch (this year’s most successful crop) it is definitely not a herb

   Well done Umber – more like this please. Thanks in advance to Prolixic too

   1. Thanks, Sue. I often ask my wife (also Sue – we solve the DT puzzle between us every day) to have a look at a completed puzzle when I think it’s finished but she says she already knew the answers to most and the others were too difficult. If you’re not already snowed under (I hope that’s proved to be a prophetic term!) I’d appreciate a test solver. Maybe Dave could pass on my email address if it’s of any interest?

      1. I’ll email you

6. Welcome back, Umber.

   Another puzzle that showed a lot of promise, although I agree with the quibbles that have already been raised, so I felt that “nearly, but not quite” applied to quite a few clues. My personal picks were 12a and 29a, 14a would have earned a tick too, had it not been for the missing US attribution, it’s a great surface and an excellent anagram. Unlike others, I was less enamoured with 17d since more than half the solution is lifted directly from the clue without any wordplay.

   Having an experienced test solver will benefit you immensely, and I’m sure that CS will put you right on much more than just herbs!

   Many thanks, Umber.

   1. Thanks, Silvanus. Your comment about 17d is exactly what I expected to see here. I suppose it just goes to show how opinions vary. Overall I am very disappointed by some of the obvious errors I made, especially using Herb instead of Vegetable for 28a!

      Had I realised the need to mention its origin, I would have changed 14a to ‘Yep, it’ll stick plastic instantly in America’ or ‘Yep it’ll stick plastic American instantly’

      A test solver is long overdue.

7. To crib from Silvanus, ‘nearly, but not quite’ sums up my feeling about much of this. I’m sure that having a test solver will make a world of difference and please give more thought to surface reads.
   My favourite, as a salute to Brian Rix, has to be 23d.

   Thank you, Umber, I expect to see great things from you next time!

   1. Glad someone mentioned Brian Rix. Thanks for your comments, Jane

8. Overall an enjoyable puzzle, a shame about the careless mistakes. The good ideas are all there but the devil is in the detail
   I’m sure you are beginning to see the kind of little tweaks that can turn an OK-ish clue into a great one and 100% accuracy is paramount
   I suspect that with a test solver on board your next will be of a very high standard

   Thanks Umber

   1. Thanks, Roy. Like most things in life I’m self taught but tend to get impatient and rush to a conclusion. I’m already working on my next puzzle so, hopefully, with Sue’s advice, I can reach towards that high standard.

9. I enjoyed most of the puzzle however I have ?marks against 5a, 10a, 11a, 20a and 4d so I’ll need Prolixic’s review to fully understand my answers always assuming the’re correct of course!

   Thank you Umber

   1. Thanks, Spindrift. Enjoyment is what I get out of writing clues so it’s nice to see that solvers enjoy them too, even if they’re often a bit iffy. I’ve already had a bit of a chuckle over a couple written today. Hopefully they’ll get the nod from Sue.

10. Very much a hot-and-cold one this. There were a couple of excellent and ingenious clues, but also a number which were inaccurate or even wrong. In 11a, ‘turn-ups’ isn’t an accurate instruction to the solver to reverse he order, and, further, the use of ‘up’ is inappropriate in an Across clue. 2d isn’t exactly wrong, but I don’t like the way one word (‘office’) from the string within which the hidden word sits isn’t used in the answer. In 5d, ‘six games’ won’t wash as a definition of the answer’s first word, because six is only the MINIMUM number of games in a tennis set (unless some other sport I’m not aware of is referred to). In 19d, the CPU is only part of a computer, whereas a mainframe is the whole thing. In 23d, an instruction (along the lines of the word ‘from’) needs adding to specify fully that only the 1st letters from the given string of words are to be used in the answer – simply stating ‘leading characters’, and then listing the words, is ungrammatical cryptically. Perhaps most glaring of all, in 8d, ‘mails sect’ ISN’T an anagram of the answer (too many Ss).
    On the other hand, a few clues I really like. 10a’s an extremely crafty double definition. The wordplay in 17d is extremely neat and apposite. I enjoyed the anagram and surface reading in 14a, too – v lively.
    To sum up, some nice ideas, and a good range of cryptie techniques, so there’s some potential here. But I do think a good deal more care needs to be taken in the clue construction.

11. This is the kind of rookie puzzle I enjoy seeing: A sensible grid and a very good effort that is not overambitious.

    Like others have mentioned, some definitions suffer from lack of precision. For me, little frogs was one of them. A little frog to me has four little legs. Young frogs might work, in that a young man needn’t be a man, etc. mainframe was another.

    I thought 9a would be better without “from this”.

    6d not so satisfying since the musical is named after the board game – double definitions are best when independent
    15d I don’t think is cryptic – is encota being polite or am i missing something? A cryptic definition has two readings, usually involving a pun. I struggle to see two readings here.
    21 is hyphenated in chambers
    23 needs to be “leading characters OF” i think to make sense as a cryptic instruction, else the “leading characters” should follow the fodder.

    If you are looking for test solvers, I would recommend you find other people like yourself who also write clues, and you can help each other

    1. I think there’s a perfectly good test solver around these parts who has an absolutely impeccable track record right to the top of the crossword tree.

       1. wonderful, really nice of you to offer : )

12. I came late in the day to this one, and pretty much everything I was intending to say has already been said.

    This was good fun, which for me is the top priority, although one or two experienced solvers seem to have forgotten this. If you can iron out the mistakes and, as Jane says, work on polishing your surfaces, you will arrive at a very good end product.

    Thank you, Umber. I’m looking forward very much to seeing your next puzzle – but don’t rush it!

13. Hi Umber
    I’m not best qualified to comment on how technically correct the puzzle is but I can say that I enjoyed trying to solve it. I say “trying to” as have to admit a couple of reveals.
    I’d never heard 1a but you have clued it “imaginatively”! I didnt like 11a on any level but I did like several others, 12 and 28a foremost amongst them, where I thought the surface readings were smooth and clever.

14. Thanks Umber for the entertainment, and Prolixic for the review (I think you have got Afrit’s quote backwards though).
    In 1ac iambic can be used to mean ‘an iambus’ (according to Chambers), but a ‘foot’ is not the whole ‘line’.

15. Thanks for your comments and advice, Prolixic. I think it proves that I should sometimes abandon a clue and start again, rather than include it because I think it sounds funny (as in setting fire to Sid’s turn ups). I should also look at the whole thing again in the week before its likely publication in order to look for typos, anagram letter count and mixed veg.

    I’m embarrassed, more than disappointed, in the overall result, but encouraged that most see potential in me. I hope my next effort is enjoyable and (mostly) correct.

    1. Thank you for your crossword, and Prolixic for the detailed explanations. In terms of learning about writing crossword clues, this works better when the commentometer is high!

       In 12a, Oxford is fine with ‘residual’ being a noun — “A quantity remaining after other things have been subtracted or allowed for”, so the definition seems acceptable to me.

       In 17d, while the answer does have ⅝ of its letters in the clue, ‘in’ and ‘the’ are such innocuous little words, that it’s still quite masked, so possibly OK in this context?

       Conversely, I’m not sure the definition for 24d is acceptable without ‘for instance’ or something in there to indicate it’s a definition by example. (Sushi sometimes has fish in the middle of it, but often doesn’t.)

       Finally, Prolixic, I was wondering if you would consider in the list of answers putting ‘a’ or ‘d’ after each number (as is the style for most other bloggers on this site)? When reading the list, it’s of course completely unnecessary: the subheadings perfectly indicate which are across and down clues. But when a commenter says “I liked 7d”, it’s useful to be able to press Ctrl+F in the browser and search for “7d” to look up which clue they are referring to. Thanks.

       (Just searching for “7” of course matches too many other things — timestamps, days in the calendar, enumeration of 7-letter answers, and clue 17.)

16. Not really much to add to the comments of others, except that I liked 15dn, and in 18ac I wasted a lot of time thinking the typo in the clue might have been deliberate and looking for an answer that somehow referred to losing an X.

    1. I just remembered that my first puzzle had a deliberate typo. Sorry for the unintentional confusion, exit.

17. Many thanks for the review, Prolixic. Now that Umber has accepted that he needs a test solver, hopefully most of the points you mentioned will be checked before his next puzzle is published. I look forward to seeing the results!

    1. Me too, Jane!

18. Thanks for the review Prolixic and good luck with your next, Umber

19. Very long time since I had a go at a rookie and really enjoyed the experience.
    Thanks to Umber and to Prolixic for the analysis.

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