Rookie Corner 517

47 comments on “Rookie Corner 517”

1. Hard work for us and did feel that the surface readings weren’t as sharp as we like to see them, but we did get everything sorted in the end. Great penny-drop moment when we parsed 26d.
   Thanks Mjolmir.

   1. Thanks for trying the crossword 2Kiwis. I had taken the view that any clue that sounds like a newspaper headline is alright, but perhaps not? Or perhaps you favour the shorter clues (although there were quite a few short ones). I’ll bear in mind the toughness of the clues. It is my first ever crossword and I found it difficult to judge.

      1. Welcome to the blog, Mjölnir and thanks for the enjoyable crossword.

2. Welcome to Rookie Corner, Mjölnir, with what I thought was a very good debut. I doubt that this was your first cryptic.

   I found it quite tough in places. However, I did enjoy the solve although I can’t parse 26d (very clever definition though). There were a couple of new words/meanings for me (the option in 11a and the answer to 2d) which had me reaching for my BRB.

   I think you have taken some liberties although some solvers may feel that some of these are acceptable. It will be interesting to learn Prolixic’s opinion. Also, several of your surface readings didn’t cut the mustard.

   My detailed points are:
   9a – I wouldn’t describe the RNLI as sailors.
   10a – The answer is not really synonymous with “tie”. In the chess world, it is a draw not a tie.
   13a – Unfortunately the clue is ambiguous. I initially wrote in “aping”, which is equally correct but this created problems with 2d & 3d.
   16a – I can’t see how “cute” = “little”, and there doesn’t seem to be anything in either Chambers or Collins to suggest otherwise.
   19a – The BRB gives the enumeration as (4-5).
   23a – A great pity, but this fun clue doesn’t work. “The blunder” as spoken in Wakefield would be T’ERR which would need ERR to be a noun, which it isn’t.
   8d – I don’t think you can use an adjective placed after the fodder as an anagram indicator.
   24d – This clue is ambiguous as the wordplay can lead to the answer either way round. In addition, although you have tried to help the solver with the description “former Eastern”, I still think it is slightly unfair as it was only a capital for a few years in the 8th Century.

   My pick of top clues is 12a, 27a, 28a, 4d, 15d, 17d & 20d.

   Many thanks, Mjölnir, and very well done. I’m looking forward to your next one. Thanks too in advance to Prolixic.

   1. Sorry, Mjölnir, I have just realised my mistake regarding 23a. T’ERR would be TO ERR in “Yorkshire speak”, which is absolutely fine. I am very happy to add this one to list of top picks!

   2. RD – re 26d: think of the LCD/LED display on early calculators, and how one could create a few words by tapping in numbers in the right order and then rotating the screen 180 degrees, even by carrying out a series of prescribed calculations to achieve the same effect. For example 71077345 when viewed upside down could ‘read’ Shell Oil.

      1. Thanks, Mustafa, no wonder that one eluded me. However did you cotton on to that?

      2. Yes, thanks Mustafa. If I recall correctly, this was adapted when pagers were a thing. Showing my age now!

   3. Thanks for your comments Dave. Actually it is my first ever crossword. I am now fully aware of why words that get on Terence’s List get into crosswords!

      I am not entirely sure why several of the surface reads didn’t cut the mustard. Perhaps some of them were too long? Possibly I have got the wrong link word. I am hoping to throw a question about that to the floor a bit later, if anyone has time.

      On your detailed points:
      9a – If AA can be motorists, I would be interested to know why RNLI can’t be sailors?
      10a – I have fairly commonly seen the word stalemate used outside the chess world to mean a deadlock or a tie, and tie means a draw. For example “Boro left to rue ‘wasted opportunity’ in stalemate”.
      13a – I hadn’t appreciated that, although it seems quite common for there to be two options for a clue before the checkers go in. I quite often see people asking others whether they put another word in before getting the checkers. But best to be avoided though, I take it.
      16a – The Chambers thesaurus entry for ‘little’ includes “a nice little house – pleasant, attractive, nice, sweet, cute”.
      19a – I did wonder about this. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary and Collins have this as one word, so I went with the 2-1 majority.
      8d – This was another thing I wondered about. However, Dada had “In disagreement, a certain VAR almost entirely inaccurate (2,8)” on 01/10/2023. The word ‘inaccurate’ indicates the anagram and is at the end of the sentence – nobody on the blog took issue with this. I supposed it is a bit like newspaper headlines, being punchy statements, might miss out little words – in this case ‘is’.
      24d – Noted. I was trying to spread the type of clues out. On reflection perhaps it was a bit obscure. I will try to avoid obscurity in the clues, even if I end up forced into the odd obscure answer.

      Thanks again.

      1. Thanks for responding so promptly, Mjölnir. It’s very impressive that this is your first ever cryptic crossword. A few quick thoughts in return:
         9a – I don’t much like AA = motorists either. Let’s see what the oracle (Prolixic) makes of RNLI!
         10a – I’ve never heard of a drawn football match being described as a tie, nor a tied cricket match as stalemate. Given your example, perhaps it’s a football thing in the NE?
         16a – Beware thesauri! I would advise always double-checking a synonym found from such a source using a proper dictionary.
         8d – Another one for Prolixic to adjudicate on.

         1. Thanks Dave. These discussions are very helpful.

            By the way, I notice that the DT had “Tie given by tasteless spouse (9)” for stalemate on 23/06/2022. That was by Ray T.

            Would you warm to little equating with cute if I say that the Collins dictionary has “Endearingly familiar; dear: my husband’s little ways” as a definition of little, and Chambers includes “quaintly pleasing” for cute?

      2. There are plenty of good examples of clues that work well with an adjectival anagram indicator after the fodder. The issue with 8d is that grammatically, the adjective “inaccurate” modifies “things that measure distance”, not “Let me reset”.

         By contrast, in the Dada clue, it’s clear that inaccurate is modifying “a certain VA[r]” to give the solution AT VARIANCE. It helps that “a certain VAR” is a noun phrase, which is the kind of thing an adjective normally modifies, although adjectives can also work as anagram indicators where the fodder is not a noun phrase.

         It’s an easy trap for experienced setters to fall into, never mind a rookie, so easy for a solver to forgive – your intention with the clue is clear enough even if the grammar isn’t perfect. Keep at it – you’ll iron out these kinds of details with practice.

         1. On reflection, I’m being dozy –

            [let me reset] inaccurate // things that measure distance

            Yes, that works fine. It’s just a case of applying the modifier differently in the surface and the cryptic reading.

            1. Many thanks Widdersbel. I had a clue in mind that your confirmation really helps with.

3. Welcome to Rookie Thor’s Terrible Hammer (easier to type than finding how to add an umlaut!)

   I too found this a tough challenge and I did end up revealing a few letters to finish. The top line of the Nina did help me decide that I’d worked out the anagram correctly in 3d, the bottom line made me smile. I agree with RD that cute doesn’t mean the same as the middle word of the novella, and without his remark about the enumeration for 19a, I’d have taken even longer to solve that one. I marked quite a few clues that worked well but I have quite a number of question marks for which I await Prolixic’s explanations

   Thanks to TTH and, in advance, to Prolixic

   1. Many thanks Sue. I justified cute to myself on the basis that the Chambers thesaurus entry for ‘little’ includes “a nice little house – pleasant, attractive, nice, sweet, cute”. I did wonder about the enumeration for 19a. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary and Collins have this as one word, so I went with the 2-1 majority. Perhaps I should stick with Chambers? I’ll try to make the next attempt more solver friendly.

4. Quite a tricky puzzle but I enjoyed the challenge – thanks Mjölnir.
   The Nina helped at the bottom of the grid though I can’t help feeling that its inclusion made the puzzle more complicated than it needed to be.
   26d is extremely devious and was my last answer. I still haven’t found the nude bird in 12a. Luckily we had the 7d kip only the other day.
   My favourite clue was 10a.
   Looking forward to your next puzzle.

   1. Gazza, the bird in 12a is not the feathered variety,

      1. Thanks, RD.

   2. Thanks Gazza. I didn’t see the kip the other day and had clued 7d well before. So, I was a little worried about that clue. But I was trying to get away from a clue I had seen involving swimming race. Generally, it seems plain that I lost sight of the difficulty of this puzzle.

5. Welcome, Mjolnir.

   Although I didn’t warm to either the verbosity or the surface reading of the first clue, I actually found myself enjoying the puzzle the more I got into it and admiring the cleverness of some the constructions. There was a good balance of clue types and, for a debut puzzle in Rookie Corner, there was much to commend. It was certainly “Toughie standard” in terms of the difficulty level.

   “Bit of a kip” also appeared in Donnybrook’s Toughie last week, coincidentally, so although the setter might be a debutant here, he or she is certainly aware of at least one experienced compiler’s tricks. I thought 13d was rather “same sidey” and whilst some surfaces were strained or unconvincing, none ended up being meaningless. My personal favourite clue was 20d.

   Many thanks, Mjolnir. I look forward to your next submission.

   1. Thanks Silvanus. This is my first ever puzzle and I lost sight of the difficulty. I will try to avoid obscurity as far as possible next time. I don’t normally do the Toughie, so I missed Donnybrook’s clue and was bit worried about the reaction to 7d. Thankfully it turns out Donnybrook got me out of it!

6. Good puzzle Mjolnir, thank you – debut here maybe, but like others I doubt this is your first. Some good ideas and creativity very much in evidence though I look forward to reading Prolixic’s review to understand the parsing of some of the clues. I enjoyed most of this testing puzzle despite it being very wordy & quite demanding on the GK front, but shared some of the thoughts expressed above –

   – 9a RNLI is not a synonym for sailors;
   -12a – I’m not certain that ‘bird’ (as a prison sentence, or serving time) is synonymous with clink (a prison), unless I’ve got the wrong nude bird to go with k age!
   – 16a little = cute doesn’t work for me, and the definition “a novella” for an early 1940s (and to me very obscure) children’s book was vague in the extreme;
   – 19a – enumeration, and as a layman in this game I found ‘through’ odd;
   – 13d – I’m not certain that “automation” = “without human intervention” – shouldn’t it be “automated”?
   – 24d – part of that clue was very obscure indeed, I thought!

   But there was so much to enjoy here, and highlights for me included 11a, 23a, 1d/25a, 18d, 20d & 26d. I do look forward to your next puzzle.

   Many thanks once again, and in advance to Prolixic

   1. Thanks Mustafa. Actually, it is my first ever puzzle, but I shall take encouragement from people thinking I might have done this before. Perhaps your comment about it being very wordy & quite demanding on the GK front reflects why most people thought the surface reads weren’t as sharp as they would like and it being a bit too tough.

      On your detailed comments:
      9a – If AA can be motorists, I would be interested to know why RNLI can’t be sailors?
      12a – Bird means “A prison sentence, prison”, according to the BRB, “A prison sentence; prison” according to the SOED and “Prison or a term in prison” according to Collins.
      16a – The Chambers thesaurus entry for ‘little’ includes “a nice little house – pleasant, attractive, nice, sweet, cute”. For what it is worth, Wikipedia describes this book as a novella. If you look at that entry it is quite a well known book that has been made into film, TV series, ballet, etc. The animated film came out in 2015.
      19a – I did wonder about this. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary and Collins have this as one word, so I went with the 2-1 majority.
      13d – I thought that ‘works without human intervention’, with works being processes would work, no?
      24d – Noted. As Rabbit Dave said, I tried to make it easier by including ‘former Eastern’, but it seems plain that wasn’t enough!

7. 2&7d were unfamiliar words & didn’t find the puzzle easy by any means. I did enjoy the solve but will admit to one or 2 letter reveals to complete as pushed for time. 5,18&20d would be my podium choices. Look forward to your next one Mjolnir (no idea how you add the umlaut) & many thanks.

   1. Thanks Huntsman. I will try to make the next puzzle less obscure. I’ll take note of the clues people liked and try to make the next puzzle more like those.

8. Welcome to the Corner, Mjolnir. This proved to be quite testing and I had to wonder whether you’d sacrificed too many elements of solver enjoyment in your quest to display cleverness. I look forward to reading what Prolixic has to say about some of your clues and hope you will follow whatever advice he may have to offer when it comes to compiling your next puzzle.
   This offering certainly wasn’t as the Nina would imply but there are quite a few improvements that I feel you could have made.
   Thank you for putting your head into the lion’s den!

   1. Thanks Jane. Possibly one problem may be that I don’t yet fully understand what solver enjoyment generally amounts to. I recall reading an interview with Donnybrook where he said “The clues seemed really funny – almost Pythonesque, or Pinteresque – and included something such as, “Incredibly big nun caught student taking writing material without batting an eyelid (10)””. I thought some of the clues might fall into that category, such as “Roll some sausages in a rat sickening spice (4,5)”. But no-one has picked that as a favourite (although no-one has disliked it either). I will take on board what Prolixic has to say and generally have a think about what works. I suspect I might get a clearer picture from a crossword that has more familiar GK, the difficulty around which may be what sunk this crossword.

      1. I didn’t like the STAR ANISE clue particularly, although it was brave to use a reverse lurker construction. The “rat sickening” element jarred for me, would one ever read or hear those two words in combination? I’d say not. This was one of the clues I thought had an unconvincing surface.

9. Thanks all for taking the time to try my first puzzle. Next time, I will try to reduce the average number of words used, use more familiar GK and make the puzzle overall more like the clues that people said they liked.

   I have a question that might be of benefit to all rookies, but particularly green rookies like me. Prolixic has a section in his guide about Link Words (section 3.7). It seems that there are both mono-directional and bi-directional link words. Would anybody have the time to say whether the following are correct examples please?

   Mono-directional: wordplay [link word] definition – leads to, results in, producing, getting, gets, gives, is, becomes, turns into.

   Mono-directional: definition [link word] wordplay – from, is found in, using, given by, of, as, via, through, by, has, in, from, having (seen on 24 02 2024 in DT between the definition and the wordplay).

   Bi-directional: and, with, or,

   1. I’d say that’s a very good set of appropriate link words/phrases. For “wordplay to definition” you could also add “finds/finding” and “reaches”.

      I’m pleased to see that a) you are keen to get things right from the start (not all Rookies are) and b) you are paying close attention to Prolixic’s excellent guide.

      All this bodes very well. Good luck with your next puzzle!

      1. Many thanks Silvanus.

   2. And perhaps also for “wordplay to definition”, ‘makes’.

      1. Definitely!

   3. And Prolixic says “Wordplay for definition” works correctly but “Definition for Wordplay” does not. Just putting that in as I shall be coming back to this discussion to check I’ve got clues the right way around.

      1. Yes, that is absolutely right. These “rules” about link words and getting constructions the right way round are fundamental to the success (or otherwise) of a puzzle. I’m delighted that you are giving them the importance they deserve.

   4. Thanks Mjolnir for a fun & challenging debut. Fwiw, I liked the 80s reference for 26d – no matter when the displays were invented, the ‘turn it upside down’ joke certainly feels *very* 80s to me! Anyway, re link words I think you have a good handle on that … one that I personally think is bi-directional is “is”; I’ve often seen it picked up by Prolixic as incorrect (i.e. used the wrong way) but have never understood why, and I’m sure it is often used bi-directionally in published puzzles. On the other hand, “with” to me should be mono-directional – Definition “with” Wordplay (“with” = “by means of” / “as a result of” / “using”) though again it’s seen used both ways – I guess justification is e.g. “Now, Brick Tamland with the weather” (“with” = “bringing you”) but it somehow doesn’t feel quite right to me. Thanks again!

      1. Many thanks Fez. Perhaps ‘with’ might be viewed as the equivalent of ‘and’, in the sense of two things belonging together? Chambers includes ‘by, beside’ as a definition (and ‘denoting nearness, association, or connection’).

10. Hallo Mjolnar Rather late to the fray but a well done from me! It’s hard to believe this is your first effort at compiling. I did find this quite a serious toughie. I tried to solve this earlier today and only managed a few. A second attempt this evening yielded some more but I did need several reveals to get me over the line. Now having read the comments I’m relieved to find I’m not the only one! Ticks from me for 11 19 and 23a and 3 15 and 17d. I also really liked the inventiveness of 26d although I’m not convinced about the 1980’s. They were introduced to the world at large I believe in the 60’s. I was using one in the seventies and still do so today!

    As a recent Rookie I do understand the challenge of trying to demonstrate ones capability of producing technically sound cryptic clues whilst producing smooth surfaces and making the puzzle a fun exercise for the solvers. It looks like you are well on the way to demonstrating the first criteria. Certainly limiting the level of general knowledge required and using words and phrases in common parlance would help address the latter issue.

    Having said that I did think this was a really excellent first effort. I look forward to seeing next submission.

    1. Many thanks Jeemz. Your words of encouragement are appreciated. I’ll try to make the next one easier. On the 1980s, I wasn’t intending to imply that this could only be done on calculators from the 1980s. I was trying to distinguish between the 7 segment display calculators of old and the ones on smartphones without using too many words. I seem to recall that there also used to be a sort of pager speak using the numbers on the pager displays in the 1990s, but I might have to think long about how to weave that into a clue!

11. Thanks for your interesting review Prolixic. I will now go away and digest this exercise. I did think about 27a, as at first I thought the clue wouldn’t work. But then I reasoned that “Clod lets a” is three words, so they ‘become’ rather than ‘becomes’ the definition when reorganised.

    It’s not in this puzzle, but I am wondering whether ‘e’ can be indicated by ‘the East’, or whether that becomes ‘thee’. I might try to search the blog to see if it has ever come up before.

    1. I am still scratching my head over why the AA and RAC are usual suspects for ‘motorists’ but RNLI cannot be sailors. The RNLI might primarily be a rescue service, but so are the AA and the RAC. I thought the point is that they provide their services using motor vehicles. Sailors is a usual suspect for RN, the Royal Navy, presumably because they do their job mostly in boats and ships, no?

12. Many thanks for the review, Prolixic. I’m quite happy now about the ‘option’ which I’d never come across but the inverted electronic calculator is still well out of my grasp.

    1. Hi Jane. I referred to the 1980s to visualise a 7 bit character display, like many alarm clock numbers. It doesn’t work quite so well on, for example, the iPhone calculator. Here are some words that can be spelled out in this way: https://www.dictionary.com/e/calculator-words/ . I recall that this sort of thing was also done on pagers when they were a thing in the 1990s.

       1. Thank you for trying but think I’ll just have to take your word for it – all the clocks in my house have ‘real’ numbers!

13. Mjölnir, I don’t know if you’ll see this, but I solved a Bluth (Django) puzzle in The Independent today, in which he accurately clued RAC as “group of drivers”. 👍

    1. Many thanks Dave.

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