The grid was only 11×11, there were no extra or missing letters, no hidden messages, just six unclued entries and two hidden words to find. I found it pretty easy, despite the longish preamble.
In the completed grid, one member of a family is leaving a location. One member of another family is entering the same location. Each uses the same technique to pass an obstacle, different in each case. Solvers must highlight both members. Unchecked letters of the unclued families, location, technique and obstacles could form LOCAL ACT, VIVA RACE!
The bottom half of the grid yielded pretty quickly, and row 8 was ARCTIC OCEAN, the location, and row 11 was SALMONIDAE – one of the families. So migrating animals were the theme. The obvious thing that salmon do is jump over the falls on their way to spawn, where they are “Caught in the Act” by bears. Row 7 contained unclued FALLS, and a bit later when the top half began to yield, row 4 showed as OVERLEAPING , the technique, and row 1 as CRICETIDAE, the family of rodents which includes hamsters. The only leaping rodents to my knowledge are LEMMINGs which (reputedly) leap over cliffs and row 5 contained C?E?E which I interpreted as CLEVE a cliff.
The two examples of the species to be highlighted were the LEMMING in column 5 leaping into the Arctic Ocean over the CLEVE and the rising SALMON in column 10 leaving the Arctic Ocean and jumping over the FALLS.
The final check was to verify the unchecked letters in the unclued answers against the phrase, though this seemed unnecessary to me, the solution being quite apparent without this extra information. I didn’t like the cluing of HER as “she” in 16D (wrong case!) and am still unconvinced by my parsing of 19D, so any comments would be helpful!
Well at the easy end of the Inquisitor scale, but a nicely constructed grid and quite entertaining from Ferret.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay |
| 8 | Beginning of unholy row over onshore deposit (4) | URAO | U(nholy) + OAR (row) reversed |
| 9 | Guns to follow in retreat (4) | GATS | STAG (follow) reversed |
| 12 | Recall verse titles (6) | TENNOS | SONNET reversed |
| 13 | Rail about joining members of secret service (5) | SOREE | RE (about) in S(pecial) O(perations) E(xecutive) |
| 15 | Gypsy involved in swindle; the first to occur in Irish racecourses (6) | DROMOI | ROM (gypsy) in DO (swindle) + I(rish) |
| 18 | Bird no longer starts to moult outside aviary(3) | MOA | M(oult) O(utside) A(viary) |
| 21 | Marlene left out mobile to call again (6) | RENAME | [MAR(L)ENE]* |
| 26 | Wind flipping over fluttering hen (5) | FOEHN | OF (over) reversed + [HEN]* |
| 27 | Nothing in a trick generates alarm (6) | AROUSE | O (nothing) in A RUSE ( a trick) |
| 29 | Moulding’s highest point apparently missing (4) | OGEE | APOGEE (highest point) minus AP(parently) |
| 30 | Weak person finally shed tear (4) | DRIP | (she)D + RIP (tear) |
| Down | |||
| 1 | Mini (&) drama? (4) | AUTO | Double definition |
| 2 | Princesses fled uprising to await further developments (6) | RANEES | RAN (fled) + SEE (await) reversed |
| 3 | Play by Euripides – one currently being performed (3) | ION | I + ON (Apart from having to Google Euripides plays, the most trivial Inquisitor clue ever?) |
| 4 | Manoeuvre bit by bit to stop Corps leaving (4) | EASE | CEASE minus C(orps) |
| 5 | Woodlouse say, in case belonging to audio player (6) | ISOPOD | SO (in case) in I-POD (a brand of over-priced audio player) |
| 6 | Organised raid to find grass (4) | DARI | Dari = durra: [RAID]* |
| 7 | Support that is shown in El Salvador for songs (7) | ELEGIES | LEG (support) + IE (that is) in ES (El Salvador IVR) |
| 9 | Robot to work with moon vehicle (5) | GOLEM | GO (work) + L(unar) E(xcursion) M(odule) |
| 10 | Despot so far heading north in Turkey (4) | TSAR | AS (so far) reversed in TR (Turkey) |
| 11 | Divers move to contain nuclear poison… (5) | VENOM | [MOVE]* round N(uclear) |
| 14 | …carriage made safe in flasks (7) | CARAFES | CAR (carriage) + [SAFE]* |
| 15 | Drover regularly encountered deer (3) | DOE | D(r)O(v)E(r) |
| 16 | She takes against a bird (5) | HERON | HER (she) + ON (against) |
| 17 | Discover money in short (6) | FATHOM | FAT (money) + HOM(E) (in short) |
| 19 | Going about Faroes almost getting lost once (5) | AFORE | I assume that the definition implies an archaic form of before = once, though I don’t like “getting lost”: [FAROE(s)]* |
| 20 | Dispute besieging ancient city’s side-walls (6) | PLEURA | PLEA (dispute) round UR (ancient city) |
| 22 | Aircraft designers engulf navy in stink (4) | MING | MIG (Soviet aircraft designers) round N(avy) |
| 23 | Mobile phone’s a disappointment by the sound of it (4) | CELL | Sounds like SELL (disappointment) |
| 24 | John goes round Eastern French city (4) | CAEN | CAN (= lavatory = John) round E(astern) |
| 25 | Dispensaries stocking up catmints in some places (4) | NEPS | Hidden reversed in diSPENsaries |
| 28 | Out-of-the-way force deserted (3) | ODD | OD (Reichenbach’s force) + D(eserted) |
After getting a handful of answers right away and knowing that the clues were all straightforward, I had high hopes of making progress with this but rapidly ground to a halt and had to give up. Reading the answers here there seems to me to be a higher ratio of more unusual words than is often the case.
I wonder if 19D has inadvertently acquired two anagram indicators – “Going about” and “getting lost”. It seems to me the clue works adequately with either one, but not both.
We have had a few on the easy side lately and I am actually starting to look forward to a tough one. Enjoyable nonetheless
With regard to 19d, I think ‘getting’ is fine as a link in the manner ‘Mixing A getting B’, and ‘lost once’ is a fair definition for AFORE. I quite like the clue.
I don’t have a problem with SHE for HER either in 16d as in the nominative case they mean the same. ‘Her’ wouldn’t fit well in the clue but I don’t see that as a requirement of wordplay.
I nearly finished this one, so I suppose it must have been easy. But, disaster in the top row. Having spotted one family of fish in the bottom row, and finding that another family of fish, the Sciaenidae, fitted what crossing letters I could get in the top row, that’s what I put. Meant I couldn’t get 2dn. And without 2dn, CLEVE was a bit obscure to get from just the first and last letters.
Like others I didn’t find this too taxing but there were one or two potential pitfalls.
I doubt whether many folk would know the scientific names for the hamster/lemming family so there were one or two possibilities at 1A such as the one Dormouse@4 found. Are Dormice part of the ‘Cricetidae’ family ?
Unlike you Hihoba, I actually had to rely on a mixture of the unchecked letters and, after a while, a sudden PDM about lemmings leaping off cliffs (supposedly) to finally get, after a Google, the ‘Cricetidae’….only then after trying the more fanciful, made-up ‘Critecidae’.
I always thought ‘lemming episodes’ were fairly infrequent and not really well understood ?
Apparently, Dormice are part of the Gliridae family. 🙂
I now wonder why I entered what I did as there was no ‘n’ in the unchecked letters crib, and it’s not as if I hadn’t noticed that bit of the instructions. I see from my workings out that I had been crossing out the unchecked letters I’d found. And Cricetidae even turned up in the e-search I did. I guess I was so sure I was looking for another family of fishes.
Re 19d – I agree with Nick @3 – “getting” simply means “resulting in” and “lost” signifies the archaicism for “once”, which is the def
Fairly straightforward endgame but an enjoyable solve
On the easy side, but not unduly so.
I did find the phrase of unchecked letters useful at the end, confirming FALLS then guessing CLEVE.
19d: Not a good clue in my opinion – digging out the definition left a few of us stumped. I suppose it goes “once” … “formerly” … “before” … “afore” (archaic = ‘lost’). Hmm.
(But SHE=HER in 16d is fine – check Chambers.)
Anyway, thanks to Hihoba for the blog & to Ferret for a neatly worked grid.
I rather enjoyed this. A quick solve but satisfying. Although I struggled with 19d, I think it was fair. ‘once’ = ‘at a former time’ (Chambers def 4); ‘afore” = ‘before’, archaic; both adverbial. Perhaps not perfectly synonymous, but we’ve seen much much worse. And the clue as a whole was nicely terse.
We’d like to reiterate HolyGhost’s comment on the neatly worked grid.
Not too stressful to solve but an enjoyable one. Sometimes we appreciate not having to spend too long on the Inquisitor.
Thanks to Hihoba and ferret!
I wouldn’t have said it was easy…not super tough, but it certainly gave me work out. I had to use the barred off letters to get me over a couple of sticking points.
As HG says, a very nicely constructed grid, I like the Lemmings just falling over the edge of the cleve.
Thanks
The lemmings-over-cliff bit irritated me somewhat — I thought that myth had been totally debunked, same as the one about ostriches burying their heads in the sand. The infamous Disney file with the canonical lemmings incident was apparently caused by the production crew physically throwing the damn things off the cliff.
I missed a few of the clues, but once I saw LEMMING going down and SALMON going up, I lost interest as it was then just a matter of looking up which family each belonged do.
Would never have got 1d or 12a, not knowing “auto” (as a drama) or “tennos”, and failing to persevere with 3d.
Thank you Hihoba and all those who commented. I think the comments here illustrate that one solver’s easy is another’s more difficult. One solver’s fun is another’s irritating. I know of no answer to this other than having a wide range of difficulties and themes which is what John Henderson, the IQ editor, does a brilliant job at providing.