Comments on: Inquisitor 1154, Belt up by Meissa

By: scarpia

scarpia — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:47:27 +0000

Thanks Hihoba.
Really enjoyed this one,even though the theme took me quite a while to work out – astronomy not being one of my strong suits.BETELGEUSE was the way into the theme for me after that the rest fell pretty quickly,but still spent time looking for Hatsya in the grid,before re-reading the rubric.
Special thanks to Gaufrid,who kindly sent me a scan of the grid as,due to bad weather,the U.K papers did not arrive on Guernsey that day.

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 22:04:55 +0000

When I saw Belt Up and the 3 unshaded middle rows, then solved the 'unlocated' BETEL, I immediately thought of ORION. Checking a star atlas led me to Meissa, and so before I'd even started on the ordinary clues I felt I was well on my way. (I ignored noting other stars so as not to spoil my enjoyment.) I suspected Mike Laws up to one of his tricks (see 1111 – as Hi says, "the wording of the rubric carefully avoids mention of highlighting in the grid"), seemingly confirmed when EDDIE emerged as the entry at 3d. P.S. I think the 8 three-letter unlocated clues were merely a diversion to make it less easy to identify the 5 that led to the thematic entries.

By: REGALIZE

REGALIZE — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 18:14:39 +0000

I really enjoyed this one. Struggled for a bit with 11ac. Back in the day when I worked for the GPO, Staines was in Middlesex. I was astounded to find that it is indeed now in Surrey and has an interesting reason for being so.

By: Duncan Shiell

Duncan Shiell — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 11:08:25 +0000

While I am 99% sure you are right about Ikela being Meissa, technically it could be Charybdis under a pseudonym if he/she is to get to 3 puzzles for the year.

If you allow IKELA as a wordsearch, with its crooked pattern, you will also find KEA (twice). More straightforwardly, you will also find PHI is a straight line. You have also got MIKE (Laws) almost in the middle of the central column. There are probably other setters in there is you allow some off-the-wall patterns of letters. I think the only Inquisitor setters in 2010 you can’t get are Schadenfreude (no F in the grid) and Quixote(no Q)

I only finished the puzzle late last night because of other things. The first theme word I got was BELLATRIX which initially had me heading down the Harry Potter road. BETELGEUSE put me on the right road.

I am not sure of the reason for all the unlocated three letter words – maybe it was simply to help with the location and deduction of the theme words. I suppose the intersections of AWE and EWE, and ROC and ION look like stars. The position of TUN doesn’t intersect with any of the major stars of Orion, nor does it form a star pattern. It is symmetric with ERG and I note that all the three letter words are symmetrically placed.

By: Hi of Hihoba

Hi of Hihoba — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 08:13:51 +0000

P.S. Ba also found IKELA hidden in the grid, and from the Editor’s figures published this week, which included “Ikela (etc.)” my suspicion about the identity of Meissa as mIKE LAws is confirmed!

By: Hi of Hihoba

Hi of Hihoba — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 08:05:52 +0000

I hadn’t noticed that occurrence of ORION! I think my explanation is more probably correct. I noticed that the wording of the rubric very carefully avoided saying “highlight in the grid”.

By: aloo2

aloo2 — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 06:39:09 +0000

I had ‘I ORION’ highlighted, as the sword on Orion’s Belt. I was, however, never confident about it.