Comments on: Inquisitor 1204: Non-standard by Chalicea

By: Chesley

Chesley — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:32:26 +0000

I enjoyed this and found it entertaining and educational as I was unaware or the significance of Maidenhead until an internet search enlightened me.

I totally agree with the moan about the preamble. Although I was pretty sure of what it actually meant, one of these days the presumption will be incorrect! “Wordplay yields an extra letter” would simply suffice.

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:35:26 +0000

Not sure I concur with Hi’s assessment (“Not quite on a par …”) – I rated this as a respectable stablemate of the recent puzzles by Hypnos & Nudd, and better (whatever that means) than a couple of others in between.

Maybe because it was my turn to blog I paid more attention to the wording of the clues – there was virtually no redundancy, with almost every word pulling its weight. (The sole exception that I can find is “accepting” in 30a.) That’s what I meant when I wrote “tight clueing” in the blog – very pleasing.

By: Chalicea

Chalicea — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:25:50 +0000

Thank you to the blogging team (especially to HolyGhost; I am relieved that it wasn’t too easy this time).

Radix’s detailed input about extra letters was the result of a request for clarification of an extra letter issue that sprang from a discussion between the Inquisitor Editor and me. We have certainly taken what he said on board. He has kindly vetted the next one where I use that device.

It was John’s idea to have all that material highlighted. I originally had only the six letters of Brunel’s name to be coloured. Clearly a lot could have been completely ignored by solvers.

Yes, it would be difficult, Hihoba, for lesser mortals to reach the standard of that astonishing Gloria Estefan crossword.

By: Hi of hihoba

Hi of hihoba — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:39:55 +0000

I found the word RAILWAY from the extra letters and saw BROAD GAUGE next. The rest was easy enough. We still suffer from the fact that everyone else decided that the narrow gauge was to be the standard. Trains would be more comfortable if Brunel’s gauge had been used!

I am normally very annoyed by inexact rubric, but didn’t find this confusing, strangely. I think there has been a marked improvement in the accuracy of our rubric lately, so thanks to Ed for that.

I had never heard of LEET – and am not sure I believe in it!

It was only thanks to the crossword that I found that the first stage of the line ended at Maidenhead!

Not quite on a par with the recent run of outstanding Inquisitors, but very good nonetheless. Thanks to Chalicea.

By: kenmac

kenmac — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:47:30 +0000

Thanks HG.

I finished this one reasonably easily though, at first, I tried going east rather than west – i.e. GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY. Once I cleared that up I found IKB reasonably quickly and the others just jumped out.

On completion, I was a little disappointed that the highlighted squares didn’t represent any kind of design, as I had highlighted all squares the same colour. I had not noticed the subtleness of shading the creator and the creation in different colours. Your blog has made that much clearer for me.

And … I agree with your moan!