Inquisitor 1384: Blowing by Chalicea

52 comments on “Inquisitor 1384: Blowing by Chalicea”

1. Thank you HG for the crisp blog and parsing.
   Like you, I have reservations about MACHINE as this does not appear in the poem as a description of the guns. Apart from this very minor quibble, I thought this was a near perfect puzzle.
   (Though I wonder why we weren’t asked to highlight any of the crosses?)
   (Also, why were ‘appropriate colours’ optional? These are either part of the grid solution or not. I have never seen LARKS, but suppose I could have googled to find out their colour. MACHINE GUNS could be gunmetal grey or steely blue or black. FLANDERS FIELDS could be green, red with blood – or simply brown, as you have it.)
   Okay, that’s quite a few minor quibbles.
   Sorry Chalicea, but we have to find something to moan – I mean opine – about here on fifteensquared. I loved the puzzle. I was driven round the bend by all the scattered letters of ‘poppies’ that occurred across the middle five rows of the grid.
   I was convinced that these were petals that were ‘Blowing’ between the crosses. And, that they were meant to be connected to reveal a relevant shape. Classic case of looking too deeply, and not thinking that two singular depictions could add up to the plural form of the flowers.

2. Could it be that 50A with corrected misprint is USE – with the answer DOS being a double definition?
   DOS being a form of the verb to do/use someone (See BRB}.
   DOS also being the plural of ‘do’, meaning party.

3. For the first time in many months I got every single answer in the grid correct. But I totally failed to work out the theme, not helped by failing to get several of the misprints.

4. Needed a little parental assistance to get over the line with this as, like Dormouse @3, I was struggling with some of the misprints. I had wondered about the DEAD that appears towards the top of the 3rd column and whether Singers might refer to the speakers of the poem (“We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.”).

   Another thematic answer is of course TOTAL WAR at 42a.

5. I decided that “total war” should be highlighted. We are specifically asked for the scene, not just the location, and (as said) the poem only mentions “guns”, not “machine guns”, “total war” is 8 letters, but one is already highlighted. We will find out on Saturday.

6. My solving experience (in the caravan without internet connection) closely mirrored HG’s. An easier set of clues than of late – no bad thing! I found the poppies, but had to carry out a count before I located stalk and stem. I worried about the machine guns, particularly as there is another hidden gun near the stem, but came to the same result as HG. I agree with UT=DO in 50a. I enjoyed it a lot, despite the failings pointed out by HG and some comments above.

7. Thanks to Chalicea for an interesting puzzle, and to HG for raising some important issues regarding the endgame here.
   We really shouldn’t have to rack our brains to this extent over the highlighting.
   My ‘theory’ is that the crosses were intended to be part of the highlighting [the crosses are certainly part of the ‘scene’, so why use this word in the preamble rather than simply ‘place’?]. However, I would object to a ‘tau’ cross in this context [it’s the wrong shape], and I wonder if that’s why they were dropped entirely. I highlighted the two appropriately shaped crosses, and GUNS [also 49 cells], but it looks much worse than the almost-symmetrical version you get if ‘machine’ is included [and if ‘machine’ is included I think Chalicea’s poetic licence should be revoked]. Highlighting a combination of clued entries and hidden strings just doesn’t quite work for me – the poppies were nicely done, I wish we’d simply been asked to highlight these.

8. This may sound contentious, but once I’d worked out what the theme was, there seemed little doubt as to what should be highlighted…my completed grid looked just like HG’s. A relatively easy puzzle, but good fun, and a timely reminder of how English gentlemen spent their Sundays a hundred years ago…Suddenly Schadenfreude doesn’t seem so difficult..

   Thanks to setter and blogger

9. It just goes to show that you can’t please all the people all the time, I suppose. Personally, I didn’t have any of the problems or dilemmas mentioned above (OK, perhaps MACHINE GUNS). It took me about 50 minutes to finish the grid (quick, even for a Chalicea) and then another half hour to resolve a few misprints and highlight 49 cells. I did wonder whether the singers were the Dead-Eyed Peas in columns 3, 8 & 12! I think the final grid was well worth the solve, so I’ve no qualms about it being a much easier Inquisitor than normal. Nicely coloured grid, HG.

10. I’ve come to the conclusion that, however clever and creative IQ setters are (and it’s pretty obvious that they must be), there always seems to be a regular set of detractors on this site who seem to nit-pick at any and every possible nuance of the solution, preamble, grid … etc etc. It’s becoming extremely tiresome.

    Why not just sit back and enjoy the solving challenge, the entertainment value and the obvious ingenuity that the setters have put into these puzzles. I assume they must be very difficult to construct, after all – if any of the detractors think they can do better, why not try it! Perfection in anything, even a crossword puzzle, is just not achievable.

11. Like jonsurdy@1 I wondered about the various poppy/poppies combinations and spent far too long tracing out various combinations to get the correct numbers of letters to highlight. Finally seeing stalk and stem was more of a doh moment than a PDM.
    I now wonder if the crosses in the grid were a hint to ensure that only poppies between them were to be considered.

    I wasn’t at all bothered by guns/machine guns and very much enjoyed this somewhat gentler solve.

    Many thanks to setter and blogger.

12. Like Dormouse I had a completed grid (though it looks as if I got 21D slightly wrong), but didn’t get anywhere with the theme. I was missing only four misprint letters, but couldn’t make any sense out of the ones I had because I was looking for a sentence *blushes*
    I thought the puzzle was beautifully put together – so many thanks to Chalicea!

13. Oh, and by the way, “sumy” doesn’t appear in my edition of Chambers (2003). It was the first word I guessed at for 21d and I was disappointed to find that it didn’t exist

14. Sumy is in the 12th edition of Chambers, under ‘sum’, the standard monetary unit of Uzbekistan.

15. (Kippax. As in Maine Road?)

16. I’m somewhat startled by the comment on this thread by Kruger – who seems to be saying that nobody should ever say anything in the slightest bit negative about a puzzle. What happened to the concept of free speech? I would like to think that criticism of a puzzle, either negative or positive, would help setters to know what us solvers do and don’t like, and assist them with honing their output accordingly.

    For what it’s worth I enjoyed Chalicea’s puzzle. However when there is a large amount of highlighting to be carried out, it’s always likely that some solvers will find plausible alternatives. This is a definite weakness, and one that could have been easily addressed here by not including other thematic-sounding entries such as TOTAL WAR.

    My other complaint about this puzzle is that no matter how near the final grid looks, I expect more thematic depth than simply “complete the grid, and highlight some stuff”. It’s all a bit one-dimensional.

    Going back to Kruger, it is possible to achieve perfection in a crossword puzzle. I suggest that you go and solve some puzzles by setters such as Kea or Shackleton, who achieve this in other outlets on a regular basis. There are then a whole bunch of other setters who come close most of the time – setters such as Schadenfreude, Lato, Phi, Samuel and Shark.

17. #16

    …and Kruger.

    The shading/highlighting issue is the subject of this week’s commentary, btw, using Pub Crawl and Blowing as examples.

18. Caren, you’re right! I should have had more confidence in my solving abilities and looked harder *blushes again*

19. A nice final reveal that, alas, I didn’t reach despite solving all clues. I got fixated on ASSEGAAI and STERN CHASER (an easy one since I’d been rereading Hornblower) as further WEAPONS, and never escaped that dead end.

20. In partial response to Kruger @10: I enjoy the journey, and I enjoy the satisfying feeling of the arrival – but sometimes you just don’t know that you’ve actually got there or not.

    With the recent Pub Crawl, the preamble said “Solvers should highlight … a set of items (5,6,6,8) that might prove useful.” So we could rule out MAP and HAT. OK, there was still a slight ambiguity over the 5-letter word: LIGHT as a clued entry versus BOOTS as a hidden string, and it seems solvers went for the latter (correctly).

    Here, we had “49 cells, in groups”. Some were clued entries (or part thereof, if MACHINE is wrong), others were hidden strings (or a bit of both).

    I don’t know about the editing process & I assume that the setters must provide the (first draft of) the preamble, but I’d have thought that the editor (& test solvers) would look to remove ambiguities from the final version.

    Which is why I finished the blog with “… (Ed.?)”

21. HG @20 See my comment at @17.

    Thanks,

    John

22. I feel obliged to speak up in support of Kruger. I do think it is possible to offer constructive criticism (which I’m sure the compilers would welcome)without being overly negative about the whole solving experience, and I do sometimes feel that the comments here almost amount to ‘don’t bother compiling any more crosswords because you don’t meet our exacting standards’. That may not be the intention, but that is how it often seems to come across.

    I speak as an ex compiler (albeit of only one puzzle), and I know how difficult it is to get everything to fit.

    Personally I cannot see any justification in trying to ‘rank’ the compilers…they are all brilliant as far as I am concerned (and one man’s meat is always going to be another man’s poison). Thanks again to Chalicea for this weeks excellent offering, and to Kruger for the hours of enjoyment he/she has given me.

23. Many thanks to Kruger who so chivalrously expessed my thoughts about what, to a setter, seems to be rather unnecessary nit-picking. If only you knew the hours of discussion that go into the honing down and polishing of the preamble. (In this case, the editor finally decided that the colouring should be ‘optional’ since some solvers fuss about requirements that expect them to take out the children’s coloured pencils or even look up the colour of larks – turquoise in the Indie solution!)

    In this case one of the superb group of vetters (Trevor Crowther who has sadly now left us) exchanged about ten emails with me over the issue.

    STERN CHASER was indeed in the grid, but it doesn’t take much nous to look up WWI, if you seriosly fear that those weapons were used in Flanders Fields and clearly the crosses (one of them cryptic – but this was a cryptic crossword) were there to point you towards the poppies. Delighted, Dave, that you spoted the dead-eyed peas!

    Mike Denton, my intention was to place the TORCH on high and to include the TOTAL WAR; it is my setting speciality to include as much appropriate material as possible, and I am warmed by some of the appreciative comments above. I feel that it is perfectly fair to expect solvers to spot flowers, a scene, the type of weapons (that had killed McRae’s friend the day before – ten minutes of perusing reference books or the Internet would resolve any doubts – and singers, especially as we gave the letter count.

    I was convinced that this was far superior to my Listener (on a similar theme) that appeared in the same week and also occupied about fifty hours of compiling time, but the response to that has been infinitely less nit- picky. Ah well, I suppose it is what we expect from 15 squared.

    Thank you, anyway, especially to those who encourage and appreciate.

24. And, of course, thank you for the blog Holy Ghost.

25. I don’t think setters fully appreciate that I have to wait ten days to tell them that one of their entries wasn’t in Chambers, it feels like a lifetime:)

26. Nick@25 hahahaha!

27. Well, like the puzzle itself, the blog and debate has been hugely enjoyable. I quite enjoy it when things get a bit rowdy here. Shame we’re not all in the pub.

28. jonsurdy@15 Bingo. I decided that, in the unlikely event that I ever became a setter, that would be my pseudonym 🙂

29. Kippax. Maybe you’d have to change it now to Colin Bell.

30. Mike Denton @16 : Surely perfection, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder and therefore can never be a definitive concept.

    To paraphrase – one man’s perfection is another man’s detestation … And it always will be.

31. Nick, indeed we do! In addition to up to five years between compiling and seeing the puzzle in print, we have to wait until the puzzle is no longer live to see how harsh or generous the 15-squared gurus will be (unless we read the almost instant input on the Answerbank or, worse, on the Crossword Solver site which devoted seven pages to this one culminating with someone telling them that poppies are red with green stalks – honestly!)

    But do let me recommend winning or updating your 2003 Chambers as the rules are very strict about our using only Chambers words or fairly identified proper nouns.

    Kippax, the DEAD was deliberate, and the ASSEGAI as I felt that the context ought to remove all ambiguity about the type of weapon McRae was referring to.

    Do have a go at setting. who could resist a pseudonym like that. I’ll happily test solve (and nit pick at) the first few.

32. Chalicea@23 I took your advice and spent 10 minutes researching the death of Lt. Alexis Helmer, the officer who inspired this poem. I found this –
    (he) “left his dugout and was killed instantly by a direct hit from an 8″ German shell. What body parts could be found were gathered…”.
    I think your puzzle was a fitting tribute but I think you are being oversensitive to the few criticisms expressed here. Many solvers have had a problem with highlighting machine guns. When I picture the devastation of Flanders fields it is artillery that comes to mind – the poem doesn’t mention machine guns, guns yes, larks yes, crosses yes…
    Another thing that doesn’t “do it for me” is your invoking the word cryptic to answer my “theory” regarding the Tau cross (at least I think you were referring me – you didn’t actually say).

33. Chalicea has gone and actually named TSTMNBN!
    What dread and dark powers have now been let loose amongst us?

34. Chalicea: Many thanks for the generous offer! Highly unlikely to happen anytime soon, but I shall keep it in mind 🙂 Incidentally, i did have an Inquisitor idea come to me in a dream once, perhaps I’ll work on that.

35. D.Reynolds. Yes, indeed I have to accept your correction about artillery being the cause of his death, but my grid needed the MACHINE GUNS for the symmetry and they were, of course, with the four-inch tap, (one machine gun being the equivalent of about a hundred snipers with rifles) what made Flanders Fields such horrendous killing grounds.
    Clearly the TAU was anomalous (and, of course, you have every right to point it out) but, believe me, I would even have used DSO had I been pushed to it by the grid. If each of us could produce what Kea and Shackleton always seem to achieve, we obviously would. As Dan says, it really is difficult to get everything to fit.
    Oh dear, what have I done – the TSTMNBN! I received a thorough keyboard lashing there some weeks ago for being too ‘un nit picky’ in our Listener Numpty blogs, but it is easy to simply ignore it, unlike the well-informed comments of some of the 15-squared participants.

36. Apologies Chalicea if I sounded flippant by raising TSTMNBN. Just trying to add a little leven. Perhaps that was wrong because we are all discussing fairly serious issues about setting and solving. (And it’s a shame, given the much more serious theme of the puzzle.)
    I am firmly on the side of the setters, whose brilliance always makes me feel like a single cell organism intellectually.
    I would just repeat what I said at #1:
    ” . . we have to find something to moan – I mean opine – about here on fifteensquared.”

37. Shirley Curran @35 One final comment from me –
    When invited to highlight a number of clued entries from a larger, thematic set of clued entries we are forced to make choices. You managed to cram an enormous amount of relevant material into the grid – and did it with a degree of symmetry that could only have been enhanced by the inclusion of the crosses. I think that’s quite a feat in itself.
    I’m not objecting to the tau cross [and i wouldn’t object to the dzo] because crosses – I can now assume – were not to be highlighted.
    If ‘machineGUNS’ hadn’t been highlighted either I’d have congratulated you on including both sets of deadly machinery for the price of one.
    If I’d only highlighted the cleverly hidden poppies I’d still have appreciated the underlying symmetry in the grid – but you’d have had a massive rewrite on your hands [although I’d have had a much prettier – and more poignant – picture as my final grid].

38. Mike Denton @ 16 : I assure you that I regularly solve puzzles by all of those you mention for – and I thoroughly enjoy the process because they are very fine setters indeed.

    You should not assume that setters do not engage in the solving process too. Most of us do. But how many solvers engage in the setting process? Few, I would imagine.

39. Re #38, if memory serves, the late Mike Laws, Nimrod’s predecessor as IQ editor, used to say the solver is king and that sounds right to me – if there are no solvers, there are no puzzles. I’d be very surprised if there were many setters who did not themselves start as solvers. Also esp in these series anyone can submit a puzzle and solvers, from their experience, should have a fairly good idea as what is likely to pass muster.

    I think the guidelines for this site allow criticism (and rightly so) while emphasising that the reasons for such remarks should always be clearly stated e.g. it is not sufficient just to say “I did not like this puzzle”.

40. I am starting to get a bit tetchy now so I must try to make this my very last comment on all matters crossword related.
    Why did the Ed bother ‘advertising’ his contribution to the debate on this site [it’s in the Independent today]? It really wasn’t worth the wait.
    For the Pub Crawl highlighting issues a much fuller analysis is given by HG here @20.
    For Blowing I’d say the same for jonsurdy @1, grahamderek @5, or me @7.
    This is part of what Chambers gives for SCENE –
    ‘landscape, picture of a place or action’
    If only the geographical location was required, a more suitable word could have been found [a minor rewrite?] And Ed, we weren’t specifically asked to highlight LARKS, or machineGUNS or POPPIES either. And Chalicea, having discovered another meaning of TRAIN today – it’s a real pity you didn’t use it to give us yet another CROSS.
    I was pleased to see that the printers left a trace of the crosses highlighting in the published solution today. Haven’t we learnt anything from the Chambers fiasco? When you’ve removed the highlighting get the printers to reinstate what was there before.
    Finally, when I’m offered a free vote on ambiguity in a crossword I’ll vote NO everytime – my time is precious [although I know you must think we’ve got nothing better to do with it].

41. OK apologies for the ‘printers’ remark – ”highlighted for infomation only”
    But the crossword gang isn’t running Bletchley Park anymore – there isn’t a war on. When you’re hearing that lots of solvers are having problems deciding what to highlight in a grid, you – the setters, the vetters, the Eds – have most likely blundered, just admit it once in a while.

42. In Pub Crawl, I hid the four items in the grid as a bonus for observant solvers. As it turned out none of Inquisitor’s testers seemed to fit the profile of observant solver as they all missed everything:) Understandably the editor was concerned that solvers might not appreciate such trickery so it was decided just prior to publication to mention them in the preamble. The danger with any late change is that it isn’t tested and may introduce complications as proved to be the case here. If D Reynolds is looking for someone to blame then that is me for trying to be too clever.

    Wan

43. My ‘last post’ does seem to be dragging on a bit – but I’ll try to finish it this time.
    Please Wan, don’t fall on your sword over this – there have been quite enough displays of chivalry on Chalicea’s behalf as it is.
    I didn’t even realise that there had been ‘issues’ with Pub Crawl [which I enjoyed, so thank you]. I’d have struggled to mess that one up! The blog for it seemed to hinge on the wordplay for one particular clue. Someone had a bit of fun over whether or not we needed an anorak on top of a fleece, but the 3 letter freebies you gave us were never an option because we were generously given the word lengths in a very clear preamble [partly thanks to the Ed’s intervention you tell me now – so thanks Ed]. And I remember the blogger briefly toyed with choosing a clued entry over a hidden string [before quickly opting for the right one]. I can only imagine that lots of entries were submited with the wrong highlighting – I’m baffled as to why.
    I am not desperately trying to find just anyone to blame for the ambiguities in Blowing. I’m pretty sure I know where the blame lies. Here’s my ‘theory’ –
    Chalicea sets a good puzzle – she’s got tons of thematic stuff in there [she may or may not have skimped a tad on her research but it is a huge subject after all]. A pedantic vetter spots an incongruous bit of highlighting so the decision is taken to drop it. It’s the easiest solution as it just means a tiny rewording in the preamble ‘highlight 49 cells’ instead of 59. But, as you so rightly say, ‘a late change … may introduce complications’ as happened here. Now I’d have scripted a brief ‘sorry about that folks’ but no, the setter, the Ed and anyone connected with it must now be defended as if their lives depended on it – and the puzzle acclaimed as a work of genius and the epitome of clarity [it’s only the solvers whingeing again after all].

44. I would say that when “lots of solvers are having problems deciding what to highlight in a grid” (@41) then “the setters, the vetters, the Eds” should conclude that there was some residual ambiguity. But to say they “have most likely blundered” is rather harsh – they have done their best (as usual), thought everything was clear & not open to doubt, and what remained was merely accidental.

    In this particular case, had the preamble said something like “Groups of cells (49 in all: 5, 11, 14, 9+10), …” then I think that (all?) the ambiguity is resolved.
    (And wouldn’t have made the endgame that much easier, would it?)

45. D.Reynolds. You have confused me as @40 you say ‘For the Pub Crawl highlighting issues a much fuller analysis is given by HG here @20.’, which I thought it best to explain, then in response to my post @43 you say ‘I didn’t even realise that there had been ‘issues’ with Pub Crawl’.

46. Get in! My first Inquisitor win 🙂

47. nick @45
    Please read HG@20.
    I’ll sum it up for you –
    there really wasn’t a problem with Pub Crawl – except maybe the tiniest possibility for highlighting LIGHT rather than BOOTS – which can be very quickly dismissed. On the other hand there are certain issues with Blowing…
    Im sure you can ignore the sense of HG’s comments by just picking out certain words, but that would surprise me coming from a cryptic crossword setter – so I assume you didn’t read it.
    The Ed seemed to make a whole lot of the problems with Pub Crawl in his ‘feedback’ but managed to miss them altogether with Blowing – that’s why I thought there must’ve been lots of wrong submissions. Is that so?

48. Delighted Kippax. Cheers for the prosecco! Maybe it’s a reward for all that ‘chivalry’ – though I hope, D.Reynolds, that all those considered and appreciated comments here and ‘elsewhere on both TSTNTBMs’ etc. are not just chivalry towards one of the few lady setters (Nutmeg, Chalicea, Hamamelis, not a lot of us active in the advanced thematic cryptics!) Indeed, with a theme that I felt it was very important to commemorate (and I have also been slammed for not mentioning Anzac – but I wasn’t writing a history of WWI. I, too, had an uncle severely damaged and never the same after he returned from that dreadful conflagration and he was a Lancashire lad), I spent weeks constructing my grid and deliberately included the MACHINE guns. They were what McRae could hear and he could ‘scarce hear’ the LARKS as he observed the POPPIES in FLANDERS FIELDS: he told us so! I can understand the frustration of anyone who thinks there should be German artillery shells mentioned but I shall continue to give you red herrings like ASSEGAI, DEAD EYED PEAS :), TOTAL WAR and STERN CHASERs and be perfectly at ease, even delighted about the fact that they raised such a long debate. After all, this is the most difficult thematic cryptic crossword after the Listener (isn’t it?) and it isn’t like the Listener, where a solver’s single error can destroy a year’s record so I am unrepentant, feel no blunder occurred and raise a glass of prosecco to Kippax.

49. Chalicea – you seem to be backtracking from your position @35 so I must reiterate –
    The larks were drowned out by GUNS [Your own printed solution acknowledges this by presenting the two parts in lowercase and caps – ‘machineGUNS’]. The officer who’s death inspired the poem was killed by an artillery shell. You are taking liberties with the text here, and that is not a ‘red herring’ it is an error [and I won’t accept ‘poetic licence’ in this respect either]. I did find a more suitable quote for your machineguns though –
    ”We lay and heard the bullets swish and sing
    like scythes….”
    As to those issues I do have with your [otherwise excellent] puzzle – I’ve tried to be very specific. However, you, your editor and some of your colleagues have carefully avoided answering my specific points and I no longer expect you to.
    By the way, I never contribute to any of the TSTMNBN – you must have mistaken me for someone else.
    And I still think you missed a lovely touch – with the added benefit of it being textually accurate – by failing to spot this possibility in your grid –
    **T**
    LARKS
    **A**
    **I**
    **N**
    But you provided a very fitting tribute anyway, thank you.

50. Is this the right room for an argument ?

51. That’s room 4b down the corridor. It’s “Being hit on the head lessons” in here. ????

52. Chalicea @ 48

    You say you were slammed for not getting ANZAC in … you obviously tried to do so in your Rupert Brooke Listener, but only got as far as [B]ANZA[I] ! Incidentally I was baffled by your title for that : “Bear,Bear,Bearing” … but was charmed by its subsequent explanation as RUPERT + BROOK + E. My great-uncle, Sydney Glover, was at Gallipoli, having shaved his head to enlist in 1914, telling them he was 40, rather than the 60 he actually was !

    Thanks for teaching me the ASSEGAAI variant !

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