DT 26963

74 comments on “DT 26963”

1. Agree on difficulty but would give at least 3* for enjoyment. Being nice people looked for a culinary answer for 14a at first. Quite a lot of chuckle moments in the puzzle. Favourites were14a, 23a, and 17d. Thanks Scchua and Jay. It is nice to see the review up early as it usually doesn’t arrive until our bedtime.

   1. You could always write a review for us – then it would be ready early!

      1. Don’t think we’re ready for that yet Big Dave!

   2. Hi 2Kiwis. Re 14a, were you by any chance thinking of a 7 letter word with almost the same spelling that is both a culinary item and which might also fit the definition here? :-)

      1. Hadn’t thought of that. Brilliant. Pity it doesn’t fit.

2. 1.5 difficulty 3* fun. Very enjoyable start to Wednesday thank you to Jay. Thanks to sschua too.

   Once you get on his wavelength, the Beam Toughie doesn’t take long (leave the NW corner to last!) and is very enjoyable.

   1. See what you mean about the NW corner, it took longer than the rest of the puzzle!

      1. I just told Gnomey that apart from that corner, it is more of a glint than a beam :)

      2. You’re not wrong there, strewth!

3. Found it harder than that. 3*/2* for me. Favourite was 3d. I do prefer your down hints to your across ones.

   Re 24d. Doesn’t it need to get rid of its odd letters not even ones?

   1. Thanks, blog now corrected.

4. 2*/3* for me today. 4d brought back memories of my apprentice days as a sparks. Fav clue 25a. Thanks to setter & to scchua for the hints. I prefer the format of the down hints, clearer for me.

5. Pretty normal stuff from Jay and very enjoyable. 2*/4* from me.

   Favourite was 14a where I too was looking for a culinary answer!

   Thanks to Jay and sschua – now for Mr Beam!

6. I’m with crypticsue – 1.5*/3*.
   Thanks to Jay, and to scchua.

7. Good fun, thanks Jay and Sschua, liked 4d 6d
   25a. Sschua, I prefer the down clue format, kinder on the eye.
   Had fun with 21a convinced myself Jagger et al had an LP called last man standing full of gems, Googled it and found they didn’t but there is a magazine called Rolling ?????. Never saw the hidden letters D’oh

   1. I’d like to agree with “Sschua, I prefer the down clue format, kinder on the eye.”.

   2. I also agree with the down clue format – makes it much easier when viewing the blog on my BlackBerry.

8. Yesterday I only managed 4 clues. Today I finished it. If I keep taking the medicine I ‘may’ get better

9. Thank you Jay and Scchua. I found this harder than yesterday’s and needed one hint to finish – not saying which one of course !

10. Despite penning 22d and 27a early doors – I didn’t! Still in the CC. However, I did get 11 answered completely unaided (mostly anagrams and hidden words), I guess that’s a start.

    After looking at the hints I still struggled with most, maybe i’ll do better tomorrow.

    An interesting point about wavelength (I like to kid myself) would be how I solved 5d (slightly) differently to scchua: synonym for employment plus the last letter of (ultimately) opportunites on the end of (given to) a football official. Like I said only slightly different – but hopefully you get where I’m coming from.

    As a CC’er I’m going to give it 2* fun and 4* difficulty, as I got some and simply would not have got others.

    Thanks scchua and setter.

    1. Hi Jim

       That’s how I saw 5d as well. You’re better at this than you think!

       1. Me too – the seeing of 5d , that is!

    2. Thanks pommers, and good to know my brains not wrong crypticsue (unless we’re all affected).

       Fact of the day: Cryptic Crosswords are better than school, after today there’s no way I’ll forget what a rheostat is!

       1. No we’re not all affected! If you take ’employment opportunities’ to be USES (a bit thin!) then the word ‘ultimately’ is bringing nothing to the wordplay.

          1. You’re probably right, but at the time, I saw “employment opportunities” as in “the various uses that this gadget could be put to”, while “ultimately given to” indicates “placed after, at the end of the word answer”. In fact, I had initially put in “ultimately given to” in parentheses after “placed after” as an explanation, but deleted it for being too busy (cf. some previous comments). Different wavelengths, I guess, as SASManJim says.

             1. Works either way for me but I thought Jim deserved a word of encouragement :smile:

             2. Indeed, when I read your tip I fully accepted that “ultimately given to” meant “added to the end of”.

                Possibly the increased transparency of clues having more than one valid route to a solution opposed to having one specific interpretation justifies the difference between difficulty *s in most puzzles.

                Maybe difficulty should be reversed and replaced by Bandwidth for each puzzle?

             3. Perhaps Jay will drop by, as he sometimes does, and let us know one way or the other!

11. Agree with Dave **/***,fairly straight forward and enjoyable.
    Did anyone else put ‘latent’ for 19a-ie retained or hidden energy from an anagram of talent? (ie using talent oddly) set me back for a while until i solved 15d, liked 9a and 23a.

12. Scchua, much prefer the across style but would appear to be in a minority.

    1. I, too, prefer the across style, but I fear we’re out-numbered. :-(

13. I thought this was going to be difficult to start with but eventually got going and decided that it wasn’t so I agree with the 2*.
    I was stupidly slow to get the fairly simple anagram at 5a – don’t know why! I missed the anagram indicator in 4d but finally, with alternate letters in, dredged up the word from the recesses of the brain. I’ve never heard of 13d.
    I liked 9, 14 and 25a and 3, 17 and 24d.

    As far as the style of the hints is concerned I prefer the one used in the down clues but only because it is closer to what we’re used to. I think that we’re all such creatures of habit that anything a bit different gives us a shock – I’m sure that, given time, we would adapt.

    Q How many Oxford professors does it take to change a light bulb?
    A What do you mean CHANGE – this is Oxford!

    1. Agreed!

       Woodrow Wilson said: “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” :-)

    2. I agree Kath. It’s probably about what we’re used to and have grown comfortable with.

       Having said that, I do prefer the more narrative, less formal style that we are used to and find the Across style (in particluiar) used above a bit too clinical. I think it comes down to the difference between a hint and a structured explanation of the solution. The use of colour and brackets within the hint make it heavy-going to read and I would favour a less formal/rigid structure. I don’t think we need the solutions to the individual components – for instance, in 1A it would be sufficient to say “informal term for helicopter, minus phonetic ‘H’ leaves informal term for police officer”.

       The more heavily-structured style probably suits beginners more than seasoned solvers who need a few hints. I’d be interested to read more views.

       Thanks to setter and Scchua – always good to challenge the status quo!

       1. Thanks for your feedback, Stuart. I knew upfront that it would be impossible to write a blog that met everybody’s needs and tastes. The blogger is therefore in a quandary as to whom he should be addressing. I started off trying to address the lowest common factor (not that there’s anything wrong with being that), and hence the detailed structure, to offer maximum help. After all, the seasoned solvers need few hints, as you say, and therefore probably need to read only very selected parts of the blog.
          Looks like I made an unpopular choice. [Btw, I think that one can get a hint from a (slightly modified) structured explanation. Obviously not always the other way round]

          1. As a newbie, I have to say I enjoyed the down tips more. There was still a sense of achievement when I solved one after a down hint.

             Either way – thanks!

          2. scchua, with regard to your format – I hate to be critical, but my main problem is that it is not very easy on the eye! Normally, I always read the whole review, whether I have completed the puzzle or not! But, with your reviews, I only go to read the bits that I did not understand.

             Your way of doing things seems to involve far too much hard work – all that formatting!

             However, Many Thanks!

             1. stanXYZ, point noted. As for the hard work, it’s not as hard as you think – I’ve got macros to do the formatting and typing the standard phrases.

                1. Thanks for the reply. What’s the time in Singapore? Goodnight!

                   1. Singapore is 7 hours ahead of BST at this time of year so sschua may be in bed by now as it’s about midnight. ( I only know because I have a good friend who lives there).

                      1. pommers, less than 15 minutes to correct your deliberate mistakes! I can only spot 2 so far!

                         1. Not sure what you’re on about but I can edit any comment (including yours) at any time!

                            1. sschua ?

                               Feel free to use your your power to censure anybody’s comments!

                            2. Only when someone posts a solving time. Spelling errors are neither here nor there – unless they’re put in the grid!

                      2. Sorry, Mate but I was merely trying to point out that you had misspelt the name of Today’s Blogger – scchua!

                         1. No pasa nada! Just wasn’t sure what the 15 mins was about for a while – I claim senility as my excuse! I’m logged in automatically when I open the site so I don’t see the 15 minute editing bit.
                            Spelling – Mea Culpa, not the first time and wnot be the lsat! You clock the Sex Pitsols in yesterday’s Grauniad?

14. PS Sorry – manners seem to have gone AWOL today – thanks to Jay and Scchua.

    1. Mine too, so… Me, too

15. Nice puzzle today. Can’t argue with the **/*** rating – nothing too tricky. Was looking forward to seeing a 14a or at least a 23a but instead got Rowan Atkinson! Good explanations though. Regds to all.

16. Having solved 12a, I had expected Falcon to provide today’s Blog!

    ***/*** rating for me. My favourite was “Autocue” – but it shouldn’t have been the last in! Thanks to Jay & scchua.

    1. I wondered about that too, as it would have been Falcon today, but he’s moved to Thursday along with me!

17. Good afternoon all,
    Oh deary me. I had LATENT, a retained (?) energy and anagram of ‘talent’, for 19a. As you may imagine this complicated things for a while.
    Thank you for a wonderful site, jolly useful in times of trouble.
    Boethius.

    1. Hi Boethius – welcome to the blog.

18. 1.5 for difficulty? You must be kidding! I really struggled with this one. Never heard of anti-novel.

    Being slightly pedantic, a rheostat is NOT a current controller ..at least not in the generally understood context..but a voltage divider or potentiometer.

    1. Hi Roger

       You are technically correct about the rheostat but, as it’s a variable resistor and varying resistance alters the current, I think it’s near enough for a crossword clue.

    2. With you all the way here!

    3. With you all the way!

19. Im still learning and prefer to be informed of which words are indicating what. Eg anagram of (denoted by the word ‘chaos’)… Etc

    1. Ditto, I think scchua has made a really positive impact.

       1. Don’t I always say what the indicators are?

          1. Yes of course, I was commenting in the eyes of a newbie, me included quite often, when it’s useful to see an indicator in the clue rather than reading the hint. The Underlining thing has really worked for me, only if i’m really stuck do I now look at the hint, and then only for clarification of parsing etc. Hope you didn’t take it as a critisism, wasn’t meant, hope Pommette coping ok.

             1. Pommette’s doing OK thanks. You going to the S & B on Sat? If so you may see her! The underlining actually makes the blog easier to write – surprised nobody thought of it earlier!

                1. Have train tickets but usual dog sitters all away, hope to get there think just the afternoon but gutted missing anax band in the evening, hey ho.

                   1. Pommette will only be there for an hour or so early afternoon – if she makes it at all. She says she would be pleased to meet you, and others again, and Gnomey is supposed to be attending! Hope she turns up as I think the break would do her good!

                      1. I’ll do what I can, be lovely to see Pommette, if not give her an e-huggle from me

                         1. Thanks for the e-huggle – I’ll try to grab it in person if I possibly can. It’s just that there is still so much to do after a few setbacks with the sale.

20. scchua : I freely and happily own to being one of the lowest common factors and I can’t do without the blog………so whether you change the format or not, for me it’s perfect so thank you very much. I’m still struggling but persevering in light of the encouragement I’ve received.
    One day I shall also be able to rate difficulty and enjoyment ….for now all I can see is difficulty !!

    1. To quote Pommers from a post yesterday – “One good tip is that when you get completely stuck read the hints for the across clues to get some checkers and then see if you can do the downs on your own” . Keep at it, you’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll progress.

21. Just to say I do not like this style of hints, across or down. The underlining of the definition is a great idea and other reviewers are using it, but personally i do not like the change of colours or type face, also It must be a more time consuming task for the reviewer to do it in this way. Having said all that I wouldn’t have the nowse or time to do it myself, so thanks to the setter and reviewer . I read the blog every day but rarely get the chance to comment.

22. Thanks to the setter & to scchua for the review and hints. Great crossword, I was defeated by 4d, much to my shame I had resistors, seeing as i worked for 37 years as a telephone engineer & did well at physics at school. never spotted the anagram, once corrected, I got all the others that were causing me problems. favourites were 14, 16a and 3d. Good news that my Mother has improved enough to start rehab next week. Super weather today in Central London. i prefer the down clue format.

23. For me at least a three star for difficulty. Not doing very well this week, finding them all very hard.

24. Is it me or is anyone else finding these hints more difficult to follow than some of the clues? Take for example 23a, isn’t that more cryptic than the actual clue?

    1. It’s ‘blue moon’ time again Brian :)

       1. Sorry Sue that’s too cryptic for me

Comments are closed.