Ferret is becoming a regular setter of Inquisitors now. This is the fifth appearance of a Ferret puzzle.
Hihoba is on holiday, so I am writing two Inquisitor blogs in a row.
There was a fairly short preamble – "In all clues, wordplay leads to the answer with an extra letter not entered in the grid, yielding a four-word phrase, illustrated by the unclued across entries (one of three words and one of two words), and locating the unclued down entries".
The final clause of the sentence didn’t seem to make much sense on first reading, but my strategy is usually to jump feet first into an Inquisitor and hope any lack of understanding of the preamble will be resolved before the grid is full. In this case it was not until the very end that the light dawned on the meaning of that final clause
The number of unclued entries meant that there weren’t many clues to solve from definition and wordplay There were 28 which is about par for a daily blocked crossword but definitely below the norm for a weekend barred puzzle
The first clues solved were those for LYCEUM (though it took a while to get the wordplay right), AESC, NORIA [a staple of barred crosswords] , ETUI, [another staple], RESUME, VACUA, CHARR and TELAE. Using the crossing letters generated by these entries the rest of the grid fill followed steadily. The breakthrough on the four-word phrase came with the deduction that UNDER and WATER were going to be the last two words of the four. Some kind of SPHERE was becoming visible in the bottom row and DIVING BELL looked likely for row 4.
The full phrase was CHAMBERS POSITIONED UNDER WATER with the four unclued across entries being IN DEEP WATER, DIVING BELL, MESOSCAPHE and BATHYSPHERE. I think the latter three CHAMBERS were positioned down the grid in relative order of depths achieved. The first unclued entry is not a CHAMBER but simply a description of where UNDER WATER CHAMBERS can be found.
The unclued down entries could only be specific words in many cases since all the letters were provided by across entries. DOG, MOLE, RAT, TAP, LENS, and ICE all fell into this category. GLASS and GAS looked the likely two of three entries down the middle column. Still the penny didn’t drop for a while. It was only by allowing my mind to wander did the meaning of CHAMBERS as a dictionary drift itno my thinking. The phrase can be punctuated to give CHAMBERS: POSITINED UNDER WATER. Looking under the headword WATER in Chambers the ambiguity on P_T to yield POT. All the down unclued entries can be preceded by the word WATER to form hyphenated words or two-word phrases listed under WATER in CHAMBERS.
he final grid looked like this
The clues had smooth surfaces which led to the need for some lateral thinking when solving and parsing. There were no complex grid constructions, but all the clues were fair once I had understood the parsing.
The title MAIN ENTRY is based on MAIN meaning the high sea and CHAMBERS entering the sea
The double use of CHAMBERS was clever, and the clues yielded the odd smile as the penny dropped, but I’m afraid I came away slight underwhelmed by the end-game of this puzzle
|
Across |
|
|||
| No | Clue | Wordplay | Letter | Entry |
|
7
|
Start to reveal silly people in one’s ancestry (5)
|
R (first letter of [start to] REVEAL) + COOTS (silly people)
|
C
|
ROOTS (expressing or concerned with one’s ethnic or cultural identity;ancestry)
|
|
9
|
Indian races swiftly (5)
|
APACHE ( Native American of a group of tribes in Arizona, New Mexico, etc;; Indian)
|
H
|
APACE (swiftly)
|
|
10
|
Discuss a university that’s in vogue (5)
|
A + (U [university] contained in (in) RAGE [vogue]) A RG (U) E |
A
|
ARGUE (discuss)
|
|
11
|
Jerry’s next to cheat in examinations (6)
|
TRIM (cheat [slang]) + PO’S (chamberpot’s; jerry’s)
|
M
|
TRIPOS (any of the honours examinations for the BA degree at Cambridge)
|
|
12
|
Novelist reviewing The Lion King (4)
|
SIMBA (lead character in the film and musical The Lion King) reversed (reviewing) AMIS< |
B |
AMIS (reference Kingsley or Martin AMIS, each of whom are novelists)
|
|
13
|
Elysium is wrongly displaced by church college (6)
|
ELYSIUM with the letters SI (IS wrongly) replaced by (displaced by) CE (Church [of England]) LY (CE) UM |
E
|
LYCEUM (college)
|
|
14
|
Brief end to cute piglet (5)
|
SHORT (brief) + E (last letter of [end to] CUTE)
|
R
|
SHOTE (variant spelling of SHOAT [young pig])
|
|
16
|
Aphrodite and Psyche’s final meeting-place (5)
|
VENUS (Aphrodite is the Greek equivalent of Venus, both being godesses of love) + E (last letter of [final] PSYCHE)
|
S
|
VENUE (meeting place)
|
|
17
|
Jerk contracted back muscles for striking effects (6)
|
(PECK [jerk] excluding the last letter [contracted] K) + LATS (LAT is a contraction of lattisimus dorsui, a musclesin the lower back)
|
P
|
ÉCLATS (striking effects)
|
|
19
|
Ligature held by Macao escapologist (4)
|
AESC (hidden word in [held by] MACAO ESCAPOLOGIST)
|
O
|
AESC (ligature)
|
|
23
|
American cockchafer poked round mounds (6)
|
DUG (poked) containing (round) ORBS (mounds of a monarch’s regalia) D (ORB) UG |
S
|
DOR-BUG (American tem for a large European flying beetle known here as cockchafer)
|
|
24
|
Upper respiratory infection to afflict sheep (5)
|
URI (upper respiratory infection) + AIL (afflict)
|
I |
URIAL (Himalayan wild sheep)
|
|
25
|
Madame Nin‘s collection to brood over (5)
|
ANA (a collection of someone’s table talk or of gossip, literary anecdotes or possessions.) + (SIT [brood] reversed [over]) ANA IS< |
T |
ANAÏS (reference ANAÏS NIN [1903-1977], American authoress) |
|
26
|
Display about current account returning capital (5)
|
(AIR [display] + C [circa; about] + CA [current account]) all reversed (returning) (AC C RA)< |
I |
ACCRA (capital city of Ghana)
|
| Down | ||||
| No | Clue | Wordplay |
Letter |
Entry |
|
1
|
Former terrorists with God’s decree (5)
|
IRA (Irish Republican Army, disbanded [former] revolutionary militia) + DEO (to, for or with God)
|
O
|
IRADE (written decree of the Sultan of Turkey)
|
|
2
|
Lifting an iron chain of buckets (5)
|
(AN IRON) all reversed (lifting; down clue) (NORI A)< |
N
|
NORIA (an endless chain of buckets on a wheel for raising water from a stream into irrigation channels)
|
|
3
|
Small case overturned pick-up truck on East Indies (4)
|
(EI [East Indies] + UTE [utility vehicle; pickup truck]) all reversed (overturned) (ETU I)< |
E
|
ÉTUI (a small case for holding sewing articles)
|
|
4
|
Act on the defensive near to decrepit Australian (5)
|
WARD (watch over; act on the defensive) + BY (near)
|
D
|
WARBY (Australian slang for worn-out or decrepit)
|
|
5
|
Gold coin each (6)
|
AU (chemical symbol for Gold) + PIECE (coin)
|
U
|
APIECE (for each piece, thing or person))
|
|
6
|
Take back quantity of money found in local ditch (6)
|
SUM (quantity of money) contained in (found in) REEN (Somerset dialect [local] word for ditch) RE (SUM) E |
N
|
RESUME (take back)
|
|
8
|
Impression made by poles in dust (5)
|
(N [north] and S [south] poles) contained in (in) SEED (as a verb, dust) SE (N S) E |
D
|
SENSE (impression)
|
|
14
|
Prophet injured looking up secret chamber (6)
|
SEER (prophet) + (BAD [injured] reversed [looking up; down clue]) Either E could be omitted SER DAB< |
E
|
SERDAB (a secret chamber in an ancient Egyptian tomb)
|
|
15
|
Prayer beads made from bones bishop held in hospital (6)
|
(B [bishop] contained in [held in] TARSI [bones of the feet]) + H (hospital) TAS (B) I H |
R
|
TASBIH (a variant of SABHA [a set of beads used by Muslims during prayer])
|
|
16
|
Holiday starts to unfold walking Antarctica’s empty spaces (5) |
VAC (vacation) + UWA (first letters of [starts to] each of UNFOLD, WALKING and ANTARCTICA’S)
|
W
|
VACUA (plural of VACUUM; empty spaces)
|
|
18
|
Rough out trips and set forth… (5)
|
Anagram of (trips) OUT + SAY (set forth in answer) TOU* SY |
A
|
TOUSY (rough)
|
|
20
|
… to map king salmon (5)
|
CHART (marine or hydrographical map) + R (rex; king)
|
T
|
CHARR (any small fish of the salmon family, variant spelling of CHAR)
|
|
21
|
Elevate flaps dislodging five webs (5)
|
Anagram of (flaps) ELEVATE excluding (dislodging) V (Roman numeral for five) Any of the Es could be omitted
|
E
|
TELAE (webs)
|
|
22
|
Principal arranged children (4)
|
ARR (arranged) + CH (children) Either R could be omitted
|
R
|
ARCH (principal)
|
I agree with you about the end-game. I came away thinking, “is that it?” Perhaps the puny 11×11 grid had something to do with it rather than the more usual 12×12 and 13×13 we’re used to.
Thanks for the (as usual) comprehensive blog.
I too, found this rather unsatisfactory – as kenmac @1 says, just a 11×11 grid and with so much of it unclued is part of it.
But also I found the use of ‘under water’ in the phrase & then ‘water’ again in 1ac rather clunky cf most Inquisitors – so much so that despite the checkers leading to ‘in deep water’ I was loath to put it in for a while.
Then, with all the clues solved & having already got diving bell I had to make an educated guess and then hunt in Chambers for the other 2 which were unknown to me – something that’s never really satisfying & usually only resorted to when I’m completely flummoxed.
I did like the last step of the entries under water, though.
Overall it just seemed less polished & less substantial than I would expect from an Inquisitor.
Ho hum. I have mostly found that my best solves have been when I have had no ‘aids’ at all. So off with this one,to a sunny balcony in Palma with no dictionary, no ‘smart’phone and no laptop. 99% done, ‘bare’brained (that’s me really) but had to wait to come back home to trawl BRB for MESOSCAPHE and also 12AC. So, basically the grey cells let me down. I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle though, so thanks to Ferret and Duncan for the blog. On a slight tangent, I see that AZED warned that his usual reference book had been supplemented by a suggestion to google a certain clue. I suppose it was only a matter of time . At what point does surfing the net become ‘cheating’? Or are all reference points valid?
Sorry. To clarify, I had to GOOGLE ‘mesoscaphe’ as it could not be deduced from the wordplay. A bit like a GK clue… you either know it or you don’t. (I didn’t).
There is not much to add we are afraid; we felt the same as shikasta and kenmac.
Thanks anyway to S&B.
“Size isn’t everything”: Ferret’s three previous Inquisitor puzzles (not four as Duncan implies) have all been rather good, and only one of those was 12×12 (which split into 4 quadrants); the others were an 11×11 carte blanche (26 clues) and a 13×9 left to right, right to left grid (32 clues) – and all have been very well received.
However, this one was definitely weaker than those others, and nowhere near as satisfying. Just as the weekend before, this took only a few coffee breaks during my marathon weekend of exam marking – now over thank goodness.
I think that Ferret has suffered here from people’s expectations being so high – let’s hope for a great bounce-back. Thanks go to him (?) & Duncan.
I would be very interested to know what other people thing about the questions from Regalise above:
“At what point does surfing the net become ‘cheating’? Or are all reference points valid?”
In response to jonsurdy’s point – when does using aids become “cheating”, we are all doing this for FUN, not for gain.
It is very satisfying to complete a crossword without the use of dictionaries or other aids, but I don’t see any problem with using the internet as a library of reference books. We can’t all afford gigantic reference tomes which we use very few times and the internet is a resource like any other, but cheaper and easier to search. As a result, I think that crosswords like the Inquisitor are able to use themes which would otherwise be inaccessible. Do you have to purchase Grove (£120 +) to be able to find a composer’s name or to solve an opera-based theme? No!
Also I admit that my vocabulary does not extend to knowing all the words in Chambers. Is it “cheating” to look them up in the dictionary – clearly not, but is it “cheating” to use Chambers CD version (now sadly unavailable in the latest edition)? Is it worse to use a computer-based anagram finder than to have a reference book of alphabetical anagrams?
If computer use opens up the pleasure of crosswords to myself and others, I have no problem with it!
Thanks Hi. I agree totally – particularly about compilers being able to set more interesting challenges.
I remember some time ago one Inquisitor preamble ending with the words “Happy googling!”.