Comments on: Inquisitor 87 – SQUADS by Hypnos

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:15:54 +0000

I enjoyed this puzzle – curiously the division of the grid misled me into thinking that the eight unclued entries were two sets of four either side of the centre, only confirmed by the two parts of the diagonal message when discovered also being so.

I never thought of the sky and the pitch.

Seeing ENSIGN was related to RED and not DEVILS was the breakthrough.

By: Geoff Moss

Geoff Moss — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:25:02 +0000

Thanks, Pete.

I had no idea that the copy in the paper had different background colours for the two halves of the grid.

I agree with your comment about the surface reading of 17d but, having spent many hours trying to parse the clue with ‘when taking in back of paper’ included, I finally admitted defeat and thought I would wait for the erudite opinion of whoever was scheduled to blog this one.

By: petebiddlecombe

petebiddlecombe — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:09:48 +0000

Geoff,

17D – I was careless here – ‘style learnt’ on its own is an anag. of STATTERNLYe. I have no idea why the ‘when taking in back of paper’ part is there – ‘leant’ makes the surface nonsensical so I don’t think it can have been intended.

Setter instead of Letter – ’twas just the first one I thought of. Letter is a perfectly valid alternative which I hope will be stated as acceptable in the paper next week. In the grid printed in the paper, the top half had a pale blue background, the bottom half a pale green one. Less easy to notice when it’s filled with letters than when it was a ‘virgin grid’.

By: Geoff Moss

Geoff Moss — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:57:04 +0000

Pete

17d You have indicated that this is ‘R’ (end of paper) in *(STYLE L[e]ARNT) but there is only one R in ‘slatternly’.

Either ‘taking in back of paper’ is redundant or there is a misprint and ‘learnt’ should have been ‘leant’.

Also, in the unclued entries, why did you go for ‘setter’ in preference to ‘letter’. Both can be justified in Chambers. Is this related to the ‘blue sky’ and ‘green pitch’ you mention, but that I totally fail to see in the grid?