Rookie Corner 535

16 comments on “Rookie Corner 535”

1. Welcome to Rookie Corner, Patchy. Finding no overnight comments, I fully expected to be defeated by this but to my surprise managed a full grid, resorting to e-help only a couple of times with a few I can’t quite parse. Lots to like: generally succinct, meaningful surfaces and plenty of creativity on display – both of which are promising signs for your future puzzles.

   I spotted a number of technical points, e.g. involving mismatches in parts of speech and questionable indicators, but will leave those to Prolixic (thanks to him in advance).

   The pick of the clues for me were: 1a, 22a, 31a, 4d, 17d and 19d. Thanks.

2. Welcome to Rookie Corner, Patchy. I enjoyed the solve although I did find parts of it quite a struggle, particularly in the NE corner. I haven’t counted, but the puzzle did seem slightly anagram heavy.

   You’ve got some novel and interesting ideas which is always good to see, and your clueing is generally brief and accurate. I had several ticked clues with 1a my favourite.

   Some of your definitions seemed slightly awry. The BRB gives “unrig” in 11a as “to strip of rigging or of clothes”, which is not the same as “to break down”. The definition for 29a doesn’t really work for me, and that for 7d leads to a noun while the answer is an adjective.

   I can’t parse 1d to my satisfaction. It looks like an anagram of “acres” inserted into 1a (incidentally, we have recently been told by the former crossword editor of the Telegraph that you shouldn’t use a word to refer to a clue number), but is “having ploughed” a valid insertion indicator and what is the anagram indicator? Also, I don’t think “sauce” in 16a is a valid anagram indicator.

   These are points of detail in a promising RC debut, Patchy. Well done and thank you. Thanks too in advance to Prolixic.

   1. I took ‘having’ to indicate containment and ‘ploughed’ as the anagrind, RD. We do see ‘has’ or ‘having’ used like that (I guess in the sense of eating) but I must admit I don’t particularly like it since ‘has’ is more commonly used for juxtaposition.

      1. Thanks, Coot. That makes sense, but I agree with you that “has” would have been preferable.

   2. I think “unrig” and “break down” mean the same thing when applied to packing away a stage set.

      The OED defines it as “take down or dismantle”, which is close to Patchy’s definition.

3. Welcome to Rookie Corner Patchy – I too noticed the lack of comments from our overseas correspondents and wondered what to expect

   What we got was a crossword of two halves – on first read through I had solved six of the Across clues and seven of the Downs. Most of these were in the bottom half of the grid, so I persevered there and soon had solved most of the clues in that part of the grid. The top half was another matter and in the end, I did reveal a couple of letters to finish off. I have three clues with a ? where I await the wisdom of Prolixic. While typing this comment, I have just ‘seen’ the “One” in 1d – sneaky or clever or both? I did like 4d

   Thanks for the start to my Monday solving, and, in advance, to Prolixic

4. Welcome to Patchy who’s given us a cracking puzzle with lots of PDMs and laughs.
   I have loads of ticked clues on my printout including 1a, 10a, 23a, 4d, 6d, 8d and 19d.
   More like this would be very welcome.

5. Really enjoyed completing this puzzle, thank you, Patchy. Our favourites are13a, 29a, 6d and 24d. We couldn’t parse part of 1d until we read comments above – doh moment! – as we had noted the connection with 1a. NE corner was last to fill in. We look forward to your next one, more like this please, Patchy. Thanks also in advance to Prolixic.

6. Hard work for me with too many reveals and checks required especially in the NE.

   The phrase that immediately springs to mind is ‘some polishing required.’

   Thanks Patchy but not for me. Thanks in advance to Prolixic.

7. Welcome, Patchy.

   I’d be surprised if this is your first-ever attempt at producing a cryptic puzzle but, if it is, then it is a stunningly good debut. Like others, I found the top half significantly more challenging than the bottom, so I’m wondering if you decided to make it easier/more difficult as you filled the grid, depending on your starting point?

   Technically, there was little to fault, but I did feel that occasional liberties were taken, especially with 1d. I think using “Christmas” to mean December is too much of a stretch but the surface readings were generally of a high standard and I must applaud the use of “hobbledehoy”, it’s a great word and not one I can recall seeing in a crossword clue before. My printed page has many ticks, I’ll go for 1a, 6d and 17d as my top three.

   Congratulations on an excellent debut, you can be deservedly very proud of this puzzle.

8. As others have said, this was an excellent debut puzzle for Rookie Corner and I would be surprised if it’s the first attempt you’ve made to construct a puzzle. A few niggles certainly but overall not much that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. My own choices would be 21,23&31a plus 19d.

   Look forward to your next one, Patchy.

9. Thank you for a very enjoyable puzzle, Patchy, a very accomplished first appearance in RC. I too worked from S to N, finding the N slower to complete, and I very much look forward to Prolixic’s review to understand a couple of my answers. Having so many 4- and 5-letter clues made the puzzle feel rather ‘bitty’. My thoughts, some of which are already noted above:

   11a – as with RD above I wasn’t entirely convinced that unrig = “to break down”
   16a – ‘sauce’ as an anagram indicator was new to me
   18a – the closest BRB definition of hobbledehoy (‘awkward youth’) and oaf doesn’t convince me that the two are synonymous. Maybe Collins or Oxford defines one or both differently?
   27a – personally I find it difficult to equate perfidy (faithless; unfaithful, deceitful, treacherous) with atheism (disbelief in [a] god[s]). Others will disagree.
   33a / 28a – repeated use of time to inject a t into the answer
   1d – very clever, but count me among those who feel that ‘one’ for ‘1a’ doesn’t really work

   On the other hand, for a puzzle with so many clues, that’s a very short list indeed, and there were many good surfaces, amusing “penny dropping moments”, and plenty that would make me think next time, “oh good, another Patchy Puzzle” – or should I say, “another Puzzle by Patchy”!

   Thank you, and in advance also to Prolixic

10. Thank you Patchy for a very entertaining puzzle. My first read though this provoked the reaction wow, how well your the clue surfaces read. My second reaction was that this was probably far from being your first attempt at compiling! I thought there were many good ideas and lots to like. 4d made me laugh as did your use of duff as an an anagram indicator in 12a. Other clues that I thought worked well were 6a 21a 22a 29a 5d 19d and 24d. I liked the idea in 1d but I don’t think the construction quite worked. As others have pointed out there are a few clues where I felt you had used some definitions which were not really accurate. Perhaps they were chosen to make the surfaces read well?
    Thanks again. Hope to see more from you.

11. Thank you all for your comments

12. Thank you for your review Prolixic, much appreciated

13. Many thanks for the review, Prolixic. I’m sure that Patchy will be very pleased with his score from the commentometer.

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