Thanks for the Help by Ifor
Clues – all normal – are in alphabetical order of their answers, to be entered where they fit and ignoring the shaded entries. Those on the right of the grid must be entered in reverse or upwards. The two shaded columns must each be filled with an actor’s name (that on the right reading upwards) with the same letter-pair occupying two of the cells in one column. Solvers must insert a word in the phrase under the grid such that it becomes a clue to the names of individuals portrayed by the actors in a film and establishes which grid orientation is correct. The other shaded cells must be filled in a way suggested by the film’s title.
Kept thinking I could never do this puzzle, if I tried
But then I spent so many nights thinking, “got to get this done”
And I grew strong and eventually I won.
(apologies to Freddie Perren, Dino Fekaris and Gloria Gaynor)
Regular readers will know that I’m scared of alphabetical jigsaws and then to see one consisting of two grids. Not only that, one of them’s back to front. Then there’s two columns that have to be, initially left blank but then filled with stuff which is, otherwise unclued. What’s not to like?
My first pass through the clues didn’t really throw up anything but to be honest, I wasn’t trying that hard. Then my eyes fell on “Box containing …” giving me CERATE. Next was IBERIA closely followed by EMPIRE for the “United States …” clue, though I did put a little question mark beside it. It turned out to be wrong, of course.
With the help of my trusty assistant, the lovely elmac, I was able to fit the answers in and that helped me solve the few remaining clues.
It was obvious that the grids could be filled in one of two ways – either ARCHED (grid A) or SPREAD (grid B) at top-left and the other one at bottom-right.
I have to admit that the last part – sorting out the phrase under the grid – was beyond me. In hindsight, I was overthinking it but I had to check with my fellow bloggers. I was trying to treat each half of the phrase separately rather than as one combined phrase. I do wonder if the instructions could have been worded slightly differently.
Anyway, once both grids were filled, I had to go about finding our actors. Assuming (correctly) that the full across answers made real words, I started wondering if one of the columns spelt MAJOR something but I was getting nowhere. Then, all of a sudden, I came upon MARK RYLANCE and quick trip to IMDb and I found that he was in BRIDGE OF SPIES alongside AUSTIN STOWELL. I saw Bridge of Spies but I couldn’t have told you who was in it other than Tom Hanks. Austin Stowell has to be entered with the ST sharing a square both times they occur.
This means that the “bridge” between the two grids has to spell SPIES and it can spell spies in either direction. And this, of course, refers to Glienicke Bridge in Berlin.
Mark and Austin played RUDOLF ABEL and (FRANCIS) GARY POWERS, respectively.
Now, looking at the incomplete phrase – aka my stumbling block. It turns out that the full phrase should be GUARD WALL BEFORE PROSY EXCHANGE. “Exchange” indicating that the rest of the phrase (including the extra word) indicated an anagram of RUDOLF ABEL GARY POWERS.
I guess that this indicates that the correct grid orientation is with MARK RYLANCE on the left hand (or WEST) side and AUSTIN STOWELL on the right hand (or EAST) side as it represents where the (alleged) spies were BEFORE the exchange.
I vaguely remember my parents talking about Gary Powers – I was only seven – but I don’t remember the name Rudolf Abel, even after watching the movie.
I think that the title refers to the aforementioned Mr. Hanks or T Hanks or T-HANKS.
Just wondering … what was the word ACROSS doing at the head of the clues? A slight oversight by our, usually, meticulous editor?
I thought that this was a really good puzzle. It’s just a pity that I wasn’t able to follow the instructions clearly at the end. Many thanks Ifor.
STAY SAFE everyone.
| Clue |
Entry |
Adjusted entry |
Wordplay |
| • One of several organic compounds before a meal and elsewhere (6) |
ACETAL | AC (before food)+ET AL (and elsewhere) | |
| • They depend on trees in Scotland, all meant to be replaced (6) |
AMENTA | RAMENTA | A‘ (all, in Scotland)+MEANT (anag: to be replaced) |
| • Vessel accepted volunteers early before being engaged (5) |
AORTA | Accepted+TA (volunteers) containing OR (old word for early) | |
| • Bent back without water losing pressure (6) |
ARCHED | MARCHED | [p]ARCHED (without water) minus first letter |
| • Ring of land, isolated until filling completely (5) |
ATOLL | TO (until) inside ALL (completely) | |
| • Adulatory greeting means rage is briefly set aside (3) |
AVE | NAVE | AVE[rage] (means minus RAGE) |
| • Towns springing up quickly affected society (5) |
CAMPS | CAMP (affected)+Society | |
| • Box containing last of the ointment (6) |
CERATE | ACERATE | CRATE (box) containing [th]E (last letter) |
| • Make a small change to the previous answer (6) |
CREATE | OCREATE | Anagram (small change to) CERATE (previous answer) |
| • Die Hard fans laud good cop, regularly passed over (for extremists?) (11, 4 words) |
DEAD AS A DODO | D[i]E [h]A[r]D [f]A[n]S [l]A[u]D [g]O[o]D [c]O[p] (regularly) Probably the most impressive alternating letter answer I’ve ever seen |
|
| • Feel sense is represented in document signed without protection for Watergate (11) |
DEFENSELESS | DS (document signed) containing FEEL SENSE (anag: represented) | |
| • Dead bear sent to be skinned then stuffed by Academy (3) |
EAN | REAN | [s]EN[t] (skinned) with Acamedy inside |
| • Cardinals sighted ignoring date in Reformation (6) |
EIGHTS | SIGHTE[d] (minus Date; anag: in reformation) | |
| • Animal at local farm was conscious of being beheaded (3) |
ELT | [f]ELT (was concious; beheaded) | |
| • Ruler first to lose power in revolution (4) |
EMIR | [p]RIME (first; without Power; rev: in revolution) | |
| • United States in the direction of being made secure by space station (6) |
EUSTON | NEUSTON | US (United States)+TO (in the direction of) inside EN (space) |
| • Taking heed absorbing clarified material (4) |
GHEE | takinG HEEd (hidden: absorbing) | |
| • Gases, maybe lethal ones, no longer granted licence, finally (6) |
HALONS | It seems to be hidden in letHAL ON[e]S without [licenc]E but I can’t help thinking I’ve missed something more subtle | |
| • Sectary suffers disrespect when backsliding (6) |
HASSID | CHASSID | HAS (suffering; as in Boris has Covid-19)+DISrespect (rev: backsliding) |
| • Part of Europe becoming a colder place following onset of snow (6) |
IBERIA | LIBERIA | IBERIA (part of Europe) becomes a colder place (SIBERIA) if you add S[now] (onset of) |
| • Express dissent in one-party state (5) |
IDAHO | AH (express dissent) inside I (one)+DO (party) | |
| • Existence after beginning to lose contact (4) |
LENS | L[ose] (beginning to)+ENS (existence) | |
| • Right to keep customer without cover (4) |
LIEN | [c]LIEN[t] (customer; uncovered) | |
| • Old master seems to be faked subsequent to copies being lost (3) |
MES | EMES | [se]EMS (minus its duplicate letters; anag: being faked) |
| • Hard to avoid getting up when fresh (3) |
NEW | W[h]EN (rev: getting up; minus Hard) | |
| • Sudden shock upsets obsessives (4) |
NUTS | STUN (sudden shock; rev: upsets) | |
| • Pipe that’s the right way up (3) | OAT | STOAT | TAO (the right way; rev: up) |
| • One revealing secret route right at the end (5) |
OUTER | R–OUTE (Right moves to the end: OUTE-R) | |
| • Stretching exercises after losing one’s feet in a casual sort of way (6) |
PLATES | L-PLATES | P[]LATES (stretching exercises; minus I (one)) |
| • Boat from Malaya turned up to welcome cheers (5) |
PRAHU | UP (rev: turned) containing RAH (cheers) | |
| • Commendation of device allowing purchase to keep active (6) |
PRAISE | UPRAISE | PRISE (device allowing purchase) containing Active |
| • Domain’s here, almost hiding (5) | REALM | heRE ALMost (hiding) | |
| • Recycle rubbish, avoiding fine (5) |
REUSE | RE[f]USE (rubbish; minus Fine) | |
| • Use toe, kicking open the door for departure (6, 2 words) |
SEE OUT | USE TOO (anag: kicking) | |
| • Put into speech, so missing nothing agreed in writing (6) |
SPOKEN | S[o] missing O (nothing)+PEN (writing) around OK (agreed) | |
| • Extend despair, leaving Ifor in anguish (6) |
SPREAD | ASPREAD | DESPA[i]R (I: setter leaves; anag: in anguish) |
| • Pot of tea for one in outrage (5) | STEAN | S[i]N (outrage) with TEA replacing I (one) | |
| • New Year festival’s half empty in parts from theft (3) |
TET | T[h]E[f]T (half empty) | |
| • Grass in contact with CID uncovered repeatedly (6) |
TOITOI | TO (in contact with)+[c]I[d] (uncovered) x 2 | |
| • Cloth that’s originally old garment (5) |
TWEED | T[hat’s] (originally+WEED (old garment) | |
| • Six from Greece before five to the French (3) |
VAU | I’m not really sure how this one works or what the definition actually is | |
| • Useless eggs, perhaps missing shell (4) |
VOID | [o]VOID[s] (eggs) minus its outside letters |
I thought this was an outstanding puzzle. Thank you to Ifor for an amazing construction and Kenmac for the blog.
I was lucky in finding the two 11 letter answers fairly early and in entering DEAD AS A DODO in the LH grid, so that I didn’t have to worry about the orientation – transfer of Abel from W>E made perfect sense.
I did worry about a word beginning LP after the entry of STOWELL, but L-Plates was OK.
The final two steps – the “bridge” of SPIES and the anagram were a triumph!
PS I missed the T Hanks reference, so thanks for that Ken.
Thanks for the blog Kenmac. With crosswords like this, you really need a high percentage of answers before starting the gridfill, which unfortunately was beyond me. I got a handful, but then lost interest leaving an empty grid.
VAU is the Hebrew (?) word for 6. It sort of fitted with the alphabet order…V and AU in the wordplay.
VAU…6th letter of Hebrew alphabet!
Jigsaw crosswords are not my favourite, and I put this to one side for a few days until I was ready to give it my full attention. I picked it up again on Thursday, having tried my hand at a couple of other barred-grid puzzles in the meantime.
There were aspects of the thematic design that I could see placed a heavy demand on one’s ability to ‘cold solve’ virtually all of the clues. Much depended on whether these were pitched for a crossword in which solved clues do not yield crossing letters for other clues – a challenge for the setter, I would think, as well as the solver.
I felt I needed to get the two long answers first. I managed to get them, noting that they began with the same two letters. Then, inevitably, it was a matter of solving the remaining clues, on which I spent a few quite satisfying sessions.
Most of the clues were excellent. I ended up cold solving 32 of them, leaving another 10 to solve with (obviously) no help from crossing letters or anything else except, in a few cases, the initial letter.
With this design, solving 32 clues was not enough. Not having a complete set of either the 5-letter or the 6-letter answers meant that the jigsaw could not be enjoyed even if (logically) it could be done. That is what made this such a contrasting experience to what I enjoyed with two consecutive jigsaw-type puzzles from a few months ago (by Nimrod and Kruger).
Missing the theme was hardly a disappointment as it was a possibility right from the start. I always have problems of some sort with Ifor’s puzzles. I am sorry nevertheless that I could not exceed expectations this time and do justice to such an original design. This would have been perfect to solve in collaboration with someone!
Thanks to kenmac for his interesting introduction and summary. (I have not studied the solutions or explanations.)
Ylo @3
You are so right about needing a high percentage of answers ready to fit into the jigsaw. In this one I would have needed five or six more than I actually had (32), although what matters more is whether you have a complete set of words of a certain length. I had all the 4-letter answers but not all the 5s or the 6s.
That’s the reason I don’t like jigsaws as a rule (as I commented). I briefly mentioned two previous puzzles of this type. I completed them because I had the ‘critical mass’ of clues that was needed to make a start. Some of the clues in them were tough, but they were solvable.
Not my most glorious moment. I completed the whole thing only to notice that I had my grids in the wrong order, rectifying with the aid of a spreadsheet. And now see that my assumption that we should use CIA to bridge the gap between the two (bridge of spies you see…) was way off the mark. Oh well. An outstanding puzzle as others have noted, and a most difficult one too!
I didn’t need nearly as many cold solved answers as are being implied. I put in DEAD AS A DODO, then tried HASSID ans HALONS as “1Ac” and “1D”, found that didn’t work and tried HASSID in the other possible place (at the bottom) and ARCHED at 1A and it all began to fall into place. Maybe I was just lucky in my guesses!
Grid A is definitely the correct orientation – in the middle columns of each subgrid, at the bottom of the left and the top of the right, the sides WEST and EAST can be read. Admittedly, I only discovered this because I couldn’t figure out how to handle the phrase under the grid (I was trying to treat the two sides separately, sharing the middle word, for some inexplicable reason) and so was resorted to just staring at my almost-complete grid in the hope something might leap out. By sheer chance, I’d put DEAD AS A DODO and DEFENSELESS in the right way round at the very beginning (just because that was the order their clues appeared in) and so something did indeed appear…
In the app version of Chambers that I use, VAU is given as “the digamma (see episemon)”, and the second entry there reads “one of three obsolete Greek letters used as numerals: vau or digamma (6)” – this suggested to me that VAU was an old form for the Greek numeral representing the number six, making the definition “Six from Greece before”.
Even with all the entries that (technically) crossed the actor’s names filled in, I still had to resort to a combination of onelook and guesswork to get Rylance – knowing that one of the names had two more letters than the other but not which and where the doubles appeared in the name really didn’t help, but I got there. Eventually. I only complain because I’d very much enjoyed the process up to that point; the gridfill needed a heck of a lot of logical deduction when my cold-solving wasn’t up to scratch and that made for a challenging yet rather rewarding experience. Realising that anything that made it to the outermost columns had to form a valid four- or seven-letter word once the actor’s names had been added helped immensely, even if some of the answers were complete red herrings in this way (looking at you, EIGHTS). The main breakthrough for me was centered around the four interlocking six-letter answers at the top of the west grid (SPREAD and PRAISE across fitting SPOKEN and EIGHTS down) and its symmetrical partner (ARCHED and CERATE fitting ACETAL and HALONS), concerning how constrained these quartets had to be by the rough positions of the six-letter answers in the alphabet.
The construction was phenomenal at any rate, so many thanks to Ifor!
I do enjoy jigsaws, but found this one particularly challenging because I didn’t get DEFENSELESS (it’s been entered in grid B above as DEFENSELISS) until relatively late in the process. I don’t entirely agree that you need a high proportion of answers solved cold: I in fact filled the left hand grid (luckily I guessed correctly) before making a start on the right hand one. I made the assumption that the actors’ names would be surnames only, and there were so many possibilities for the third and ninth letters of MARKRYLANCE (assuming correctly that the resulting words would be real words) that I didn’t know where to start. I also misread the instructions to imply that the two-letter pair would appear in both names. It seemed clear that the right-hand side actor’s name would start AU but there aren’t many surnames that fit. With help I eventually discovered that I needed an actor M… R…… and once I had guessed Mark Rylance ImDB came to my rescue for the rest. I agree that this was an outstanding puzzle, both in terms of difficulty and of enjoyment. A remarkable feat of grid construction.
I quite enjoy the challenge of jigsaws and this was no exception. I completed both halves of the grid the right way up on squared paper. As already observed, it was not easy and was pleased with myself. I am not a film buff so the finish was beyond me. I stared at the cross-checked letters in the shaded columns but to no avail and the first four words of the completed phrase was clearly to be an anagram. In hindsight, I might have got Mark Rylance, which at least would have given me a narrower field to search but I am not familiar with the other guy. So I decided that looking for a needle in the proverbial was not the best way to enjoy my isolation.
Thanks to Ifor for an enjoyable grid fill and to Kenmac for persevering with a challenging task of completing his blog.
Hi @9
Thanks for your interesting comment which by implication addresses a point I made above. I did try some guesses in placing some answers (I remember I had HASSID and HALONS, although not ARCHED, I think.) But for me that was a joyless exercise. I admitted, in effect, that trial and error might have yielded some promising or even certain connections, but I wasn’t inclined to trust my luck, and I decided I had got as far as I could.
Bridgesong @11. DEFENSELISS – a little E before I problem in line 9. Fixed now.
Wow! Panthera #10. I missed WEST/EAST hidden in the grid. A lot of layers to this puzzle: it’s even better than I at first thought – and that was outstanding.
I found the gridfill surprisingly straightforward, then it was a case of guess’n’google until I stumbled upon the actors and the film, all of which were unfamiliar to me. I lucked out with what I assumed was the correct grid orientation, based on the word “before” in the anagram phrase, but was only confident it was right after someone on another forum pointed out the unindicated EAST and WEST.
I enjoyed this, as with all Ifor’s puzzles, but would have preferred an addition to the preamble along the lines of “confirmation of the correct orientation can be found in the completed grid”.
A wonderful construction and a splendid challenge, testing but doable. I had around 30 solutions from cold – maybe I was lucky with my trial and error. One very small quibble: the correct grid orientation can be deduced in two ways, either from the real-life location of Abel (Rylance) and Powers (Stowell) or from the “west” and “east” hidden in the grids, neither of which depend on finding the missing word in the phrase below the grid as the instructions seem to imply.
Many thanks to Ifor – this was a real treat of a crossword – and to Kenmac.
Panthera @10: wow, well spotted. I’ve updated grid A to reflect your findings.
I agree with the praisers; once I’d finally got ‘defenceless’ (rather slow on that), I got my pencil and eraser and started the fill on a ‘let’s see what happens’ basis. Solved lots of clues in the grid-fill process.
I needed Chambers Word Wizard to suggest the possible letters for the actors’ names; once Mark Rylance came to mind (rather fast), the bridge, and the spies, became very clear. Delightful.
I am another who thought this puzzle was outstanding. I like alphabetical jigsaws and find knowing the inital letters, at least within a letter or two, a great help when solving. I found DEAD AS A DODO quite quickly and, as a result, managed to fill almost all of the LHS before making a start on the RHS. In fact I needed the checkers to deduce DEFENSELESS which was one of my last ones in. I had what I thought was the spiffing wheeze of turning the grid through 180 deg. to enter the RHS, helping to make sure I didn’t make a mistake on entering the solutions backwards and upside down, and being able to just rotate it for the final solution if needed. As it was I had it the right way around and spotted “Powell” emerging as a likely actors name on the RHS. A google search eventually yielded the correct actors and film. I never did spot EAST and WEST in the grid though, hindered by the letters on the RHS being upside down. The icing on the cake was being able to work out the missing word BEFORE, although I suspect my assessment of the puzzle might have been different had I failed.
Many thanks Ifor for an outstanding puzzle and Kenmac for the blog.
Most enjoyable. I found that something like a 75% cold solve was enough to help me fill in the totality of the left-hand grid (correctly guessing the orientation), and that the right-hand side followed fairly logically, despite a lot of the words (on both sides) seeming to use a limited set of letters. I never spotted the west-east confirmation, though. Well spotted, panthera – as you probably are.
As always, my thanks to Ken and to all who take the trouble to comment on puzzles. Ken – HALONS requires you to remove granted licence / let as well as the E from the fodder.
Of course the “ACROSS” was a subtle hint to the theme – they’re all “across” clues…if you believe that you’ll believe anything. Setters receive a proof to check, so the fault is entirely mine – apologies. And I decided not to point out the East / West, preferring to give solvers an anagram to sort rather than encourage what would be a very open-ended wordsearch; I hope those who saw it subsequently enjoyed the little PDM and that of the title.
Ifor
We thought we had the correct grid fill only to come here and realise our stupid error.
We had DEFENCELESS which meant we were looking for a word S…C or C…S. Given the ACROSS at the beginning of the clues and the fact that the two men had to CROSS the bridge we thought that was the solution. We swapped the grids around (in our heads) to make sure it read correctly but completely missed EAST and WEST in the grid.
So for the first time in ages this was a DNF. If only we had checked the anagram fodder more carefully things would have been different. We have only ever sent in the completed grid a couple of times so at least we didn’t waste the postage.
Thanks Ifor for another splendid puzzle and kenmac for the blog.
I was taken aback by the chorus of expert solvers here refuting my (evidently) mistaken observation that my 75% of answers was not enough to complete the jigsaw.
I went to the trouble of trying to solve this jigsaw with the pieces I had and ended up proving myself wrong and everybody else right. I was right in considering it a joyless task, but my reward for going through it was to arrive at the correct conclusion that it was possible. Thanks to all commenters on this general point.
Obviously I missed the theme, but I would never have found it anyway, knowing nothing about the subject matter. I should have been able to fill all the white cells, but not the rest.
Alan – the Listener setters’ guide ( whose principles are broadly agreed on by all editors) states that solvers should not be expected to cold-solve more than about half the clues before being able to start a fill; this may be worth bearing in mind when tackling puzzles of this sort. As here, help is often given by having only a few answers of a given length and making their clues relatively accessible. Comments here and elsewhere show that some solvers enjoy the logic involved in piecing answers together – it comes back to a point I’ve made before, which is that editors do a fine job in offering a range of challenges and so catering for as many tastes as possible.
We loved this spectacular puzzle and were lucky to put DEFENSELESS and DEAD AS A DODO in the right sides from the start. Our putative grid fill began with nowhere near 50% of the clues solved but once we had the theme and Wiki to help (we know nothing about actors!) it was great fun completing it. The original political event was, of course, familiar. We needed a prompt before we spotted the West/East – a lovely final touch. Many thanks Ifor and Kenmac.
Ifor @25
Thank you for taking the trouble to respond to my comment – it is much appreciated.
In a sense I dread jigsaw cryptic crosswords at this level. I love doing them if I have all the pieces, and I still enjoy them if I can meet certain criteria – in this puzzle that would mean having all the pieces in one set of equal-length answers, like the 5-letter or 6-letter answers (I would not have needed both). I am in the minority of solvers who do not enjoy trying to solve a jigsaw crossword with only just enough pieces to make it logically possible to solve. (You make a good point about what ‘some’ solvers enjoy, and that probably applies to the majority.)
I take your point also about the range of challenges offered by this series of puzzles. Indeed the Inquisitors remain my favourite despite my recent successful forays into other themed barred-grid puzzles (from the Times and the Telegraph) while I am mostly homebound (!). I can say with confidence after a longish run with Inquisitors that I am up to almost any level of challenge: tougher puzzles make me think more and take longer, but jigsaws stand out as being a sub-genre that I have not really mastered. I had surprising successes with two previous (consecutive) jigsaws, but they took a lot out of me.
I was a bit too dismissive of your chosen theme in my previous comment, and I apologise. I eventually proved I could have completed the jigsaw itself if I had persevered, but I am 90% certain that the theme would have been out of reach, as I knew nothing about it. I would not have enjoyed trying to force out particular elements of an unfamiliar theme using speculative searches, and in this case I would have caved in and been content to do so.
Thank you again for your considered and considerate comments. I may yet get to start an Ifor puzzle and finish it!
No apology needed, Alan. I’m delighted to read that you’re planning to press on with tackling any other of my puzzles that may appear here or in similar series.
Enjoyed this very much, but haven’t a lot to add. I got about half the clues and like others found DEAD AS A DODO was a useful starting point — on a separate squared-paper worksheet, for fear of entering it on the wrong side. Happy realization that the symmetry of the puzzle meant I could use copies of the left-hand grid for both halves of the solve and leave the faffing around with reversed entries to the very last. Film, actors and characters all unknown to me, but at least I’d heard of Steven Spielberg …