Comments on: Inquisitor 149 – Out of Pocket by Ikela

By: duncanshiell

duncanshiell — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:29:06 +0000

Done – two amendments

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:50:18 +0000

Duncan – maybe an amendment/addition to your blog for 17d referring readers to our comments would be helpful.

And this was in fact Ikela’s third outing as Inquisitor: previous puzzles were no. 45 from November ’07 as well as no. 126 last May.

By: Duncan Shiell

Duncan Shiell — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:44:12 +0000

Woops!

Sorry – a senior moment (yet another one!) – I compiled the blog from comments I made beside the clues rather than looking at the grid. I do indeed have ASANA in the grid I have submitted and yes, Holy Ghost is abolutley right in the parsing.

I’ll leave the blog as it is so that readers can understand the comments.

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:08:59 +0000

Sorry – we’ve been talking rubbish here. The answer to 17d is not ASSET, but ASANA – a “position in yoga”, with ANA being a “collection” (under headword “-ANA” in Chambers).

By: George Hill

George Hill — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:56:26 +0000

I am far from clear that an asset is a position – though I’m not an accountant. Certainly Chambers doesn’t think so. Not a good clue!

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:55:06 +0000

PS I think ASSET is position (stock exchange speak) leaving AS =when + SET =collection, with “starting” being redundant reinforcement as in 1d.

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:50:05 +0000

I agree with Duncan about 41a – two islands HA*I are being confused.
In 40a, the U clearly comes from Uruguay, but that’s a new abbreviation for me.
And I parsed 1d as COLOR (=American for colour) + ADO (=fuss), with “starts” simply reinforcing the fact that COLOR precedes ADO.

Before I solved 33a late on, I had “burnt” in the clue for 2a as a redundant word, thinking along the bridge theme …
And there is the famous Egyptian Bridge in St.Petersburg and Dragon Bridge in Ljubljana which nudged me away from the theme for a while.

By: George Hill

George Hill — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:49:32 +0000

Well done! I found this pretty hard and didn’t quite finish. That’s two difficult ones in a row!
I got most of the way there and had gathered the associations with the three countries, and even managed to identify the four bridges, but fell at the last hurdle by failing to associate the bridges with the countries. I also failed to realise that the final set of three referred to England as I didn’t find lions and wasted much time trying to insert an L into perp to find a word giving “go”.
Agree with you about the Haiti/Hawaii problem.
I think ASSET is position (SET – v. to place) with AS before it (starting), but collection as a definition is suspect!