Comments on: Inquisitor 1168: Initial letters by Schadenfreude

By: Scarpia

Scarpia — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:55:59 +0000

Thanks HolyGhost.
I thought this was a brilliant puzzle.Agree with other comments,the grid construction was a wonder and what a lovely ‘finish’,with the diamond of D’s and the author’s name highlighted in an original way!
I got the quotation from the ODQ once I’d solved about two thirds of the puzzle,which helped considerably with the rest of the clues.
I spotted the trademark CAT early on,thanks to a previous blog.

My choice of music to begin this puzzle was Nikolai Myaskovsky’s cello concerto,strange coincidence!

By: Trisha Putwain

Trisha Putwain — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:11:41 +0000

I’m still boggling over this one – I think it’s damn clever to set a cryptic xword at all – but then to fit in extra words, in the right order, sorting out which have to have odd or even numbers of letters, then making sure the initials spelled out the quotation, then that the middle letters came in the right place in the answers to spell out the poet’s name in the grid, then to make the Ds form a diamond – AND make sure there were no other Ds in the grid – I’m lost in admiration! It became obvious to me that the first name had to be Vladimir, and I had the ‘ky’ ending, so he was easy to find on Google – then looking up his entries in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (revised 4th edition, 1996) of course gave the rest. Brilliant!

By: Ali

Ali — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:32:18 +0000

Excellent blog as always.

I enjoyed this one a lot. I can’t quite remember whether I found the quote using ‘ours’ or ‘land’ in my ODQ, but the discovery of half a grid’s worth of Ds was both a massive help in finishing off the bottom half and also one of those ‘ooh, very good’ moments that make solving thematics all the more worthwhile. A very impressive grid construction and some great clues. Top stuff all round.

By: Hi of Hihoba

Hi of Hihoba — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 08:30:28 +0000

Ba and I finished the whole crossword, including finding the author and the quotation (minus its missing word). Searching Google and various other engines utterly failed to yield the quotation, which is not included in our old(ish) editions of the ODQ. Only when Ho, with his latest edition, found it did we discover the missing word.
What an amazing feat by Schadenfreude to construct the diagram with the author’s name, including many unusual letters, hidden and the diamond of Ds!