Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

I've got the 6,5 name now. Can there be another name in common that gives 6,6? Surely that would be even more unfair.

I absolutely agree with Verlaine. If I have interpreted the instruction correctly, adding a line does not in any way "confirm A". What it does is to turn the title into a cryptic representation of a thematic feature that is implicit in A. That part of the preamble is just sloppy in my view.

There are just too many anomalies in this puzzle for my liking.

I began by wanting to support the setter, the last puzzle was good and I believe there were good puzzles previously, though I throw them out, so can't be sure.

But the comment from DJA, I think comment 32, sums up the problem. Setters nowadays cannot seem to find a balance. Either way too easy, or clues easyish but much contrivance after the grid is filled. Nobody seems to know anymore how to set a puzzle where the clues are difficult and there is a little twist in the tail.

There was another conversation, a year or two ago. How much internet use should really be necessary ? Going back pre- late 90s, obviously zero. And for a worthwhile cause I'd find the research rewarding, but not for this.

So this is poor.

Indeed it is poor fare. Another point that no-one seems to have picked up is that, regardless of which of 'the account's maps' you look at, H is incorrect. The polar descriptor is neither where H says it is nor at its opposite, as the author provides an arrow on both maps that makes H a clumsy contrivance for applying the two modifications required.

Why is everyone being so reticent about explaining the end-game though? This isn't the other place. Or am I being peevish because I still have no what the 'code options' are. Two types of coding system are hinted at in D, but as for how to apply them ...

The map I found via Google (search string = " map" and see the first image) definitely has the polar descriptor exactly as H describes, so let's not be too harsh.

On the other hand, I do not think that saying the 'second' row cryptically indicates the author is accurate. Part of the row does, but I do not see how the row as a whole does.

Is the setter always responsible for the preamble or could some of the problem be due to the editors? I think the actual setting and the ideas that wen into the end game are fine; it's just the preamble that is poorly executed.

Some how the search string got mangled by this site's parser. That is not what I wrote. The search string is the title of the book in quotes and the word map.

Yes, buzzb, that was one of the two maps I looked at it. If you magnify the image you'll see that the North Arrow points towards the 'polar' location. That being so, H would be (topographically) correct if it ended '... is left'. The setter has assumed that we're all so used to seeing maps on which the North Arrow points to the top that we'll accept his version of H because it serves his thematic purpose.

Pedantic, yes; harsh, I don't think so.

Saoralba, I see the same thing. There is a crossover between the sites, and the ones from the other place have perhaps intimidated the ones here...and quite often a question on here receives an answer which is not a full answer, but an answer according to the responder's assessment of a) what they need to know and b) what is reasonable to tell them...

Buzzb, if you read the second row as:
"in pART HURried" you get the first name. Read as a whole it says you hurried part of the way, so you "ran some".
So far I've done everything but the first of the two rows. I don't understand the meaning of code options to get a name. Some are saying this name is 6 6, others 6 5, but having studied the map, I can see nothing with either of these.

It is fairly standard practice in cryptic clueing that 'west' refers to the direction to the left of the grid or page; e.g. 'headed west' in an across clue can indicate reversal. So I think H is a fair description of what is depicted on the map.