Inquisitor 1299: Truly Wonderful by Lato

16 comments on “Inquisitor 1299: Truly Wonderful by Lato”

1. Hint: think of the year when it happened

2. I found this Inquisitor to be pitched at exactly the right level. Tough, but not so tough that it detracted from the enjoyment, and with very fair cluing. Although the ANNUS MIRIBALIS theme was identified early, it only yielded up its secrets slowly, partly because I was unfamiliar with some of the associations. The hint from nmsindy@1 should be sufficient; I will just add that kenmac hasn’t properly interpreted what Lato meant by his term “associations of six others”.

   I parsed 25d as O(over), G(golf) bags(includes) U(while texting) TIN(flipping idiot “nit”)

   Thanks Lato for a “truly wonderful” puzzle and kenmac for the blog

3. I woke up this morning thinking along the following lines:

   ALFRED the GREAT
   FIRE BUG
   TOWER of LONDON

   = GREAT FIRE of LONDON
   but still no further forward 🙁

4. Thanks kenmac for the blog. The ‘People’/ ‘Newspaper’ association is incorrect — I made that mistake too.

   Excellent puzzle, as always, from Lato.

5. Thanks v. much Lato and KenMac

   I guess this was just one of those where you had to be on the same wavelength as the setter. It was the Warshawski solution that gave me my PDM. I’d heard of the fictional detective from reading various crime literature reviews and at that stage I made the tentative mental connection with Roman numerals, confirmed by subsequent entries. Indeed I only managed to get some of the other thematic entries by recourse to the numerals that make up the annus mirabilis in question.

   I guess this is the beauty of this particular puizzle- there are several ways of getting to the end-solution and many diversions and blind-alleys along the way- reminded me a bit of the wall-game in Only Connect.

6. After completing three Inquisitors in a row, back to normal this week. Got about two thirds of it, but very few of the unclued words so I’ve no idea of the theme.

7. kenmac @2: it’s actually (ALFRED) THE GREAT (HANG) FIRE (TOWER) OF LONDON;

   and to put you & some others out of their misery, the rest is:
   M PEOPLE, D’ACCORD, C.DIFFICILE, L’ÉQUIPE, X FACTOR, V.I.WARSHAWSKI …
   all adding up to the ANNUS MIRABILIS

   Thanks to blogger & setter. A tough one indeed.

8. Hello,

   New user here. Cracking puzzle. I finished it (and I’m a bit gobsmacked that Kenmac didn’t, because I usually fall very short of his abilities). I’m a bit excited because I’ve just finished and posted off Schadenfreude’s, and that makes it three in a row, something I’ve never done before! When I got the MDCLXVI I punched the air! It was a real pleasure, as they all are. Sincere thanks to Setters and Bloggers.

9. A really tough but very rewarding puzzle with so much going on. The VI association was the gateway for me. Once I’d worked out all the associations there was a real sense of achievement.

   Great stuff, and harder I thought than this week’s Schadenfreude

10. Well I have to admit that this one totally defeated me. Even after seeing the solution/explanations I still don’t feel I’ve completely grasped what’s going on – although I do understand the revelation of the significant date.

    On the Henderson 1-5 scale, this warrants a 6 in my book!

11. This was my puzzle of the year so far – a lovely little clockwork contraption, which slowly and satisfyingly revealed its secrets. Like RobH, (Vi) Warshawski was for me the key step in the right direction, although it still then took me a while to put together the Great Fire of London. Fabulous.

12. And I won the Champagne! Woohoo!

13. I confess to being a little bored of “novel” being used to clue “Emma”.

14. Everything a puzzle should be for me. Then again it’s just what I expect from Lato – top-drawer entertainment!

15. Thanks to all for the blog and kind comments.

    Congratulations on the champagne, Dan.

16. We’ve only just completed(?) this one having returned from holday when we had no access to the puzzle. Our New Year’s resolution was to comment on each the Inquisitor puzzles!

    So….. despite it being late our hearts go out to kenmac. We completed the grid and found the starting point so we could have entered our solution – actually we have never entered the competition! However, we failed to find where U was substituted and did not find the connection between everything.

    Thanks Lato – we’ll try harder next time!

    We now have 2 more Inquisitors to catch up on. We don’t want to spoil our record of doing every single one since they started!

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