Haven’t seen Glow-worm for nearly a year now, so welcome back. I’ll be hiking on Gran Canaria when this comes out, and won’t be checking any comments until I return.
Each of seven clues has “ingested” an object, just like the 18a. Each object forms the first element of a two-part phrase, the second element of which provides one of the shaded (not!) spaces in the grid. In conventional order, the “ingestions” lead to an inevitable outcome: 1a, 36a!
Things were moving along, but not that fast. And then somehow, just after 12d=CHLOROPRENE, the OLD LADY came out of nowhere. (I suspect I focussed on “ingested” in the preamble.) I thought I was looking for e.g. clothes-horse, with “clothes” in the clue and a “horse”-related word as the unclued entry, but rapidly spotting cow–PARSLEY, bird–LIME and fly AGARIC put me on the right track. Finding anagrams of fly, spider, bird etc. embedded in unsolved clues ushered in a (near) completion of the grid – 29a held me up for quite a while.
So we have: fly AGARIC, spider MONKEY, bird–LIME, cat–BURGLAR, dog STAR, cow–PARSLEY and horse OPERA. As to the OLD LADY, after ingesting these objects, SHE’S DEAD, OF COURSE!
Thanks to Glow-worm; and for a different treatment of the same theme, see Inquisitor 69: Progressive Consumption by Schadenfreude.
And of course our thanks must go to John Henderson, the ‘stand-in’ editor now ensconced, who has brought us Inquisitor puzzles by Eclogue, Ferret, Gila, Jambazi, Pointer, Syd Lexis, Xanthippe, and other newcomers I might have inadvertently omitted.
A Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to setters old & new, bloggers, solvers, and those lurkers out there.
What was your favourite puzzle of the year? (Yeah, I know there’s a couple more to go …)
I assume that SEX in row 5 and ORGY in row 9 are serendipitous.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Answer | “ingestion” | Wordplay | |
| 1 | SHE’S DEAD | see preamble | ||
| 6 | TUBAE | TUB (container) + A(gat)E | ||
| 10 | TEXAN | TE (note) AN (article) around X (unknown) | ||
| 13 | ELEPHANT | PELE (footballer) rev. HAN (Chinese) T(teammate) | ||
| 14 | RETINA | [(f)INE ART]* | ||
| 15 | EGAL | (l)EGAL ((l)awful) | ||
| 18 | OLD LADY | see preamble | 20 | SAILED | horse: | shore | SAD (heartbroken) around ILE (island, French) |
| 21 | PERITONITIS | dog: | tiptoeing Doris | [TIPTOEINg DoRIS]* |
| 27 | INCISOR | (Da V)INCI’S OR(ation) | ||
| 29 | NERD | cow: | with low-cost capital | N(ew) + (h)ERD (stock, low-cost capital) |
| 31 | APICAL | A (one) PIC(picture, shot) + AL (Capone) | ||
| 32 | MOONROCK | MOON (drummer) + ROCK (his band’s trademark) {ref.: Keith Moon, drummer in the English rock band The Who} |
||
| 33 | TIP-UP | PULPIT (where one preaches) − L(atin) rev. | ||
| 34 | THERM | THE R(oo)M | ||
| 35 | ENTRY | (b)E(a)N(o) T(e)R(r)Y | ||
| 36 | OF COURSE | see preamble | ||
| Down | ||||
| No. | Answer | “ingestion” | Wordplay | |
| 2 | EXETER | [LETTER-BOXES − BOLTS]* | ||
| 3 | SALIX | fly: | transversally fixed | (transver)SALly fIX(ed) |
| 4 | ESPAÑA | ESP (sixth sense) A(ssisted) N(orrington) + A(cceleration) {ref.: Chabrier, French composer of España} |
||
| 5 | DRAWLS | DRAW (map out) L(ao)S | ||
| 6 | TONY | spider: | Blair’s pride | N(ame) in TOY (sport) |
| 7 | BENGALI | bird: | dribble a gin | [dribBLE A GIN]* |
| 8 | ARCADE | [C(lose)D + AREA]* | ||
| 9 | EARLY DAYS | Y(outh) + DA (duck’s arse, 50s hairstyle) in EARLS (Lords) | ||
| 11 | EYES UP | (Lesl)EY ES(pied) UP (on horseback) | ||
| 12 | CHLOROPRENE | [HELP CORONER]* | ||
| 16 | ABOMINATE | cat: | in a flat cap | [BOATMAN IE]* (in a flat cap) |
| 17 | PLIES | PLIÉS (positions in ballet, Cinderella) {plié is more of a movement than a position} |
||
| 19 | DAIRY | D(ay) AIRY (in the open) | ||
| 22 | ENCRYPT | [PC ENTRY (answer to 35a)]* | ||
| 23 | SEA AIR | homophone: SEE (identify) HEIR (next in line) | ||
| 24 | ONEGIN | ONE (particular) GIN (drink) {ref: Onegin, eponymous character in Pushkin’s novel} |
||
| 25 | YO-HO-HO | “… and a bottle of rum” | ||
| 26 | LOCKER | LR (Left and Right, two ways) around [COKE]* | ||
| 28 | FICHU | UHF (frequency) around CI (Channel Islands) rev. | ||
| 30 | COPY | COP (Mary Beth Lacey) + Y(en) {ref: Cagney & Lacey, 1980s US TV series} |
||
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Your last comment before the clue analysis is just a cheap dig!
(That’s row 10, btw.)
Many thanks to Holy Ghost and Phi.
I’m really sorry to have missed a CHEAP SEX ORGY (very rare at my age….) I guess we setters
are often the last to spot these felicities in the grid.
New Year good wishes to all!
Glow-worm
PS: If anyone missed the Old Lady’s “goat” — try and find a suitable combining phrase; I couldn’t think of one!
Friends who also do this crossword suggested that “Locker” at 26d was a remnant of a potential “Sucker” (combining form “goat-sucker”) that couldn’t be worked into the grid. From what Glow-worm says, that wasn’t even considered…
Thanks to him for a fun crossword and to HG for the blog.
As someone who is fairly new to themed crosswords, I try to follow the preambles to the letter. The mistake in this one was a real nuisance – ‘the second element of which provides one of the shaded spaces.’ The grid had seven shaded spaces and there were seven unclued answers, but actually one had nothing to do with the other! Were the cells for the seven unclued answers originally shaded? I did work it out for myself, in the end, so no harm was done – but I did feel it was a bit unfair.
#4 Joan MM, yes, very sorry that the printed grid was not the same as the final proof that both Glow-worm and I checked. Many solvers availed themselves of the opportunity to get the correct version via my email address, published every week under the puzzle.
As a general rule to all, please do use that address if you feel that there is some sort of error in the published puzzle. While obviously I can give no assistance(!), I can always set your mind at rest, one way or the other regarding “perceived” errors. I try to respond within 24 hours, quicker between 8am and 4-5pm Monday through Friday. One of the frustrations of being a magazine editor is that, because of deadlines, I am unable to publish any kind of apology in the magazine for at least two weeks, whereas a daily editor may be able to slot an apology in within 24 hours!
Many thanks to Holy Ghost for the unasked-for credit above, and to the rest of the blogging team, who continue to support me so brilliantly in a job that I relish. I wish that I had much more feedback from solvers, either via these blogs or via the published address. As I never see the entries each week (I’ve asked!), I cannot otherwise enter into correspondence. And I’d be very interested to know which puzzles this year solvers most enjoyed. Would solvers/bloggers/other setters care to nominate their 1-2-3 of 2012 here? If you would, I’ll tell you my own medal winners!
Finally, since the evil(!) Rasputin left me no free space on last Saturday’s DIY Card to say so, I’d like to wish everyone involved with the Inquisitor (including my hugely supportive editors and excellent solving team) a very happy festive period. Best wishes to all!
Nimrod
We really enjoyed this puzzle. We managed the OLD LADY fairly easily as HolyGhost obviously did but the subtleties of the theme eluded us for quite some while.
We would find it difficult to sort out a 123 of the Inquisitor puzzles for this year. There are ones that are a litle weak, we could name a recent one that would fall into that category, but most fall into the category of the best puzzles ever!
We do remember a couple from some years ago that stuck in the memory – one based on Romeo and Juliet and another involving ring changes in bell ringing!
Thanks HolyGhost – hope you are enjoying the walking. Thanks also to Glow-worm for the puzzle!
John H, thanks for the explanation. If there’s ever any future need for clarification, I’d certainly get in touch.
I’m off to mull over my Inquisitor favourites.
Favourites…
1215 Countdown (and this contained the best clue – for ‘toft’ – that I encountered in 2012)
1254 Alike
1246 What Do You Get?
I really enjoyed this one. My entry into the theme wasn’t with Old Lady, but with Agaric – I remember the red topped fungus with white spots of FLY Agaric from rambles with my botanist father. This led to the realisation that we had to anagram the superfluous letters, hence to BIRD and the Burl Ives song. A bit of an advantage to Burl Ives fans this year (see 1243 Paradise about the Big Rock Candy Mountain).
As for favourites, I thought we had a wonderful run recently when 1254 (Alike – the U flag)), 1255 (Last to Go by ___), 1256 (The answer is 5 – Dirty Harry) and 1258 (Wets) were all superb. Add to them 1246 (What do you get? mentioned by Joan MM in #8) and I must add my congratulations to Editor Nimrod and all his setters for a brilliant year!
I shrink from offering a specific 123 order – too close to call.
Looking back at the list, there were a lot of great puzzles this year, many of which got the better of me, including (yet again) every one set by the editor!
But of those I did finish, here are my 3 favourites, in published order:
1228 – Characters by Shark
The kind of grid you look at with a lot of satisfaction once you’ve finished
1252 – Easy Street by Kruger
The only time I’ve ever worked out the theme as soon as I’d read the preamble, but still a very enjoyable solve.
1257 – Cover Version by Jambazi
A great debut puzzle and a very well worked theme.
Here’s to lots more of the same in 2013.
Ali/Gila
I can’t remember what it was called, but Phi’s puzzle themed around Phiz/Boz waz excellent, as was Jambazi’s Abbey Road effort.