Comments on: Inquisitor 1255: Last to Go by ___

By: jon surdy

jon surdy — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 16:17:11 +0000

Thanks Violet

By: Violet

Violet — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 23:15:34 +0000

Jon at 8: MILT(Z) aren't pairs - it's 1+3. Look in Chambers for MILT: (of fishes) to impregnate, and the spleen (also, in Jewish cookery, MILTZ).

By: jon surdy

jon surdy — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 15:58:05 +0000

I don’t understand the word pairs for milt/miltz

By: Phi

Phi — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 07:02:36 +0000

I had a discussion with the ed re Ms Montez. It struck me that people would be wary of assuming anyone called Montez was Irish, and she was a ‘Spanish dancer’ according to what was effectively a genre. I made a particular point was that you’d still call your local fast-food shop an ‘Indian takeaway’ even if the proprietor was born in Walsall.

By: BertandJoyce

BertandJoyce — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 23:18:14 +0000

This really was a tour de force from one of our favourite setters. Where does he get his ideas from?

We’d solved most of the puzzle without knowing why but on googling the diagonal, on the off chance it all fell into place.

A fantastic blog kenmac – it really does justice to a brilliant puzzle. The Inquisitor is the highlight of our weekend. We haven’t missed one since the paper started and this was one of the best!

Thanks Phi for a puzzle full of Phiz!

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 20:20:29 +0000

I was initially misled by a (too?) literal reading of the second sentence of the preamble: “These surplus words fall into 6 consecutive blocks of 4″ – it’s the clues that are in blocks of 4 not the extra words, & also it’s the clues within each block that are consecutive not the blocks themselves; this led me to suspect that the blocks would be formed by cells in the grid … ah well. It was only when I discovered LOREN(Z) that I unravelled my error. And then things moved along smoothly.

I noted that “Last to go” means not only the last letter of the alphabet had to go, but also the last letter of the word, and as I was completing the puzzle, I thought that LATO (or LODA) might be the setter, though PHI did cross my mind. So thanks to him, and to kenmac for a rather fine blog.

By: Li Geear

Li Geear — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 19:25:04 +0000

Oh what a beautiful blog and a just as beautiful IQ. Yes, indeed, kenmac we do automatically look at those diagonals as the clues go in and actually the NW corner quite quickly gave me Hablot. I remember when studying Dickens what seems like hundreds of years ago we also looked at the illustrators, and this gave me that final letter which made the rest of the puzzle work like a dream.
Thanks to you and of course to Phi.

By: Steve Foulds

Steve Foulds — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 13:10:46 +0000

Enjoyable puzzle for me too. I saw Browne on diagonal but didn’t expect Hablot to be a name. My way in was also Quartz. On solving the clues I wouldn’t have guessed it was a Phi although I’ve solved many of his puzzles overtryhe years.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 10:02:50 +0000

I really appreciate it when a blog is done as well as this. Many thanks. It was a great puzzle, brilliantly constructed. I couldn’t believe it when he actually turned out to have been called “Hablot”! You always have to read those rubrics carefully – I wasted some time assuming that the four words had to be taken in the order they appeared, which of course is not actually implied in the instructions. (“Greek composer?”, “French Parliament??” etc. – I seemed to spend ages on Xenakis, Vangelis and Sénat before the penny dropped.)

By: Hi of hihoba

Hi of hihoba — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 07:57:42 +0000

I thought this was a cracker! We’ve had a superb run of Inquisitors recently.

I came to the answer in a slightly different way to kenmac. I found most of the blocks of four extra words and found the Italian actress and Austrian zoologist connection first, got the Z connection from that and QUARTZ, then Dickens/ Boz and Hablot K Browne/Phiz last of all. Final tidying up followed. I agree about the Irish Spanish dancer, but was happy to forgive Phi for the minor misdirection!