Comments on: Inquisitor 1222: JOINER by Hypnos

By: regalize

regalize — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:06:23 +0000

A bit late to the thread. Thanks to Hi, ho and ba for the excellent blog and to Hypnos for a puzzle that was far from a snooze. 36a did need triple cross-referencing to solve, but did not detract from the enjoyment of the clue. Drudge/trudge? I thought it was close enough and definable enough. Common usage has its place in good crosswords, even when the ‘bible’ does not define it. Creating the character helped to ascertain where those pesky letters should be…. I think!

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 22:19:06 +0000

Good stuff from Hypnos, with a mildly tricksy endgame.

I too tripped up over “drudge”/”trudge” initially, and eventually decided that “iron”=”resolution” was OK.

The location of the blank squares seemed to be forced except for “noB” + “Base” and for “mAt” (the latter making the intersecting 17d CREDO my last entry), but that was resolved so as to produce an ampersand.

Whether or not to ‘join the dots’ to create the character itself? The rubric says that the “[joiner] can be found in the grid” (my emphasis) – is this to be taken literally or are we to do it? Unsure.

I always appreciate it when the setter comments on the comments – it confirms they read the blog, and care (but I feel it tends to close off the conversation – don’t know if they read later comments). But thanks to all: setter, blogger, and those making comments.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 18:22:35 +0000

Thanks, Hihoba, for an excellent blog and Hypnos for a well-integrated puzzle. Like you I found it an easier start than a finish with the blanks adding quite a dimension of difficulty. But I got there. In end the only doubt about placing that I had was the A in MAT, but, after some thought, I felt it had to go exactly where you have put it.

I may be totally wrong in this but I did not think the ampersand had to be drawn ie that the blank squares would be sufficient to show it. I also thought once SAND was given as a colour in Chambers that there was no problem there but I’ll admit I was toying with WELSH NOVELIST for quite a while before I sorted things out.

By: Hypnos

Hypnos — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:07:03 +0000

Many thanks to Hihoba for the fascinating and detailed blog.

Just to respond to your queries, in 15a, “drudge” was being used as a reasonably close synonym for “plod” (both are given in Chambers as verbs meaning to work laboriously). There was no intention to use “trudge” or to create any additional misprint. In 36a, “resolution” was indeed being used as a synonym for “iron” (iron=strength=resolution).

I’ve not read Simon Garfield’s book but will try to dip into it now you’ve mentioned it!

By: John Lowe

John Lowe — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:36:21 +0000

Thanks to Hi for a detailed blog. I agree with your queries: I also had Drudge as a misprint for Trudge in 15A, until it didn’t fit the definition of Ampersand, and the best I can find for iron/resolution in Chambers is “Ironside or Ironsides n a nickname for a man of iron resolution (eg Oliver Cromwell)”. It doesn’t quite satisfy the clue, though.

I couldn’t do the bottom left until I could guess the unclued entries for some extra letters to help. I enjoyed the concealed one-letter answer to 14A – one-letter answers to crossword clues are not common!