Imperator 002

Author   anaxcrosswordsPosted on Categories Other Crosswords

At last – back online!

Many thanks for all of your comments on Imperator 001, and hopefully this second attempt will prove to be something closer to the difficulty level I’d hoped for:

http://www.ukpuzzle.com/bonus/Imperator002.html

Again, your comments are more than just welcome – they are extremely valuable, so please let me know what you think.

Anyway, I’ve had no broadband connection for a couple of days. Thanks to an exchange fault I had no telephone line and, when this was corrected, it apparently caused what is called a “stale” broadband connection. We Brits are always keen to complain, but can I just mention that my provider Talk Talk were absolutely superb. I called them this morning, got through after perhaps a minute, and the lady who answered talked me through and solved the problem (which involved a number of steps I’d never have thought of) within 5 minutes. Fantastic service.

5 comments on “Imperator 002”

  1. I would say this is easier than Imperator 001. It took me no more than 30 minutes. I used Chambers only three times: to check 12A, 33A and 9D – all answers derived from wordplay.

    All the clues are of a good standard and for me 30A, 31D and particularly 7D are very good.

    I think 5D should perhaps say “old French player” or “French player put” assuming it is Francois the organist and not some modern rugby player or somesuch that I haven’t heard of. I think 9D should indicate the Waggledagger connection. I think 17D should be “came to pass”. I’m personally not keen on 23D but I think others might well find it amusing. For my own education I assume Howards End is a TV soap?

    I’ll repeat what I said last time. Regular solvers of bar crosswords want something harder than this but for the newcomer it is a potential transition vehicle. I enjoyed the way you used your imagination in finding definitions – something the Mephisto/AZED setters are a bit more restricted on. Thanks for the fun!

  2. I think there was a TV programme called ‘Howard’s Way’. ‘Howards End’ (no apostrophe) is a novel by EM Forster,

    Tom B.

    1. Howard’s End: indeed, this is the E M Forster novel (Howard’s Way was the soap). Thankfully – for the purposes of this puzzle – Howard’s End was adapted for TV in 1970 (Glenda Jackson was in it) and Emma Thompson got an Oscar for her performance in the 1992 film version.

      5D. Correct Jimbo – it is a somewhat antique word. Given that barred puzzles frequently include archaic words with apparently no announcement I reckoned I’d get away with it.

      9D. If I’d known about the Waggledagger connection…

      17D. “Came to pass” for me would be BEFELL, where as “what has come to pass” can be written as “what has befallen”.

      As for difficulty levels, I’m trying very hard to create a puzzle that’s significantly easier than Mephisto/Azed. Solvers who become confident with Imperator puzzles would, I hope, then move on to the harder varieties. A 30 minute solve sounds pretty much ideal to me.

      1. I think you need to be careful about archaic words. Mephisto and AZED state that they use Chambers. When they use an obscure word no indication is given but if Chambers says that a word is old (Spenser, Shakespeare, archaic etc) or dialect or Scots or has some other quirk an indication is nearly always given.

        I’ve just finished blogging Mephisto 2520. There you’ll find for example both an American and a Scots word clearly highlighted as such, a Shakespeare usage defined as such, a Spenser word described as “as before”. If you’re breaking people in to Mephisto/AZED then I feel you should follow the main conventions.

  3. Definitely no apostrophe in the book, TV or film title ‘Howards End’ – I just checked. As far as I can remember, the significance of the title (which is the name of a house) is never explained in the book.

    Tom B.

Comments are closed.