Comments on: Inquisitor 132 – EXCESS by Phi

By: Simon Harris

Simon Harris — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:19:33 +0000

I don’t see anything wrong with your layout – it clearly demonstrates how the puzzle worked I enjoyed this one, and continue to be amazed by Phi’s output.

By: kenmac

kenmac — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:48:30 +0000

Thanks Duncan,

Apologies to everyone for the dodgy spacing in the explanation part but it was me against OpenOffice and HTML and in panicking because time was against me, I settled for what you see.

Note to self: must try harder.

I also wondered if DRONGO-CUCKOO was a NZ reference since DRONGO is an Antipodean slang word.

By: Duncan Shiell

Duncan Shiell — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:27:37 +0000

Ken – Welcome to Inquisitor blogging and thanks for your very clear exposition of the clues!

A pleasant puzzle by Phi, as ever. I think Phi always has at least one New Zealand reference within his clues and answers with Otago being the example this time. I did wonder if the DRONGO-CUCKOO was native to New Zealand as Phi had given us quite a catalogue of New Zealand birds in other puzzles in the past, but I discover it is an Asian bird.

I started off down the left hand side of the crossword, so as I solved the first few clues I wondered if we were going to omit the letter O, or omit the second letter of some across clues, but finally I realised that we were doing something with the first letter of left hand acrosses and the last letter of right hand acrosses. HANGOVER dropped out soon after. It was quite late on before I noticed THE WRATH OF GRAPES was appearing with its links to EXCESS and HANGOVER.