Inquisitor 1396: Artwork by Hieroglyph

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A debut in the Inquisitor for Hieroglyph, but apparently he’s set puzzles in The Independent and elsewhere.
 
Preamble (paraphrase): There are two sorts of clue apart from the ordinary ones: in one sort the wordplay generates an extra letter, and these spell out an artwork; in the other sort, the wordplay ignores one or two letters, and these are the vertices of a representation of the artwork in the grid. To finish off, we have to highlight that representation and also its creator.

Solved rather a lot of clues on the first run through, maybe just under half of them? A few hiccups along the way: I thought that 33a might be LYRA (Rector in Los Angeles with the Y ignored) but it was simply URSA (Rector in USA, and a normal clue); and for 2d I initially had SNASH with the A ignored in the wordplay, but it turned out to be SNASH with a superfluous T from NAT(ionalist). And then there was an E and an R ignored in 44a HOME SECRETARY, but which E and which R? Same problem with the ignored T and I in 16d SOTTISIERS.

Inq_1396 When nearly done, I realised that the vertices were symmetrically disposed, which helped with the final couple of answers: SCARAMOUCH at 11d, which led to confirmation of HELENA at 40a. Sorting out the final few superfluous letters, I could see that the artwork was ANGEL OF THE NORTH, whose creator, ANTONY GORMLEY, can be found on the main diagonal. Just a short hop from there to polishing off the highlighting.

I had a lot of time on my hands at the weekend, and would have welcomed a tougher challenge. Nothing particularly tricky here … it was a puzzle I would have welcomed and been thankful for as a less experienced solver, so no adverse comments from me. Thanks go to Hieroglyph – see you again.
 

Across
No. Answer Extra/
  ignored
  letters		 Wordplay
1 ASK FOR TROUBLE A   AS (when) K(ing) FOR (on account of) TA (volunteer) ROUBLE (currency)
12 NIECE   IE (that’s) in N(ew) CE (civil engineer)
13 RAZZLES   ZZ (topless band, ref. ZZ Top*) in ALE (beer) all in R(iotou)S
{*writers of the opening line “She’s got legs, she knows how to use them.”}
14 CAT-LAP N   CAN‘T LAP (unable to drink)
15 ROLAGS   (Hert)S GAL OR(dinary) <
17 ASSOILMENT    M  OIL (anoint) in ASSENT (approval)
18 NAAFI    A F  (i)N(v)A(l)I(d)
19 CHUT    T  CHU(m) (friend)
20 ACHARYA G   A CHAR (cleaner) GAY< (playwright, John Gay)
24 YSEULT   [LUSTY +E(cstasy)]*
25 MAYS    M  A(t) Y(our) S(ervice)
28 DELI    I  LED< (guided)
30 ORSINI E   ORE (mineral aggregate) (sell)S IN I(taly)
32 AORISTS L   (muscle)S after [TAILORS]*
33 URSA   R(ector) in USA (Hollywood location)
35 GNARR   R(epublican) RAN (managed) G(overnment) all<
39 WINDERMERE O   [WORRIED MEN]* around E(ngland)
40 HELENA F   ELF (fairy) in HEN (faint-hearted person) A(cting)
41 VIOLER   VI (half a dozen) LO< (look) ER (the Queen)
42 BRING TO   B(ritish) RINGO (drummer, Ringo Starr) around T(emperature)
43 EMULE   E(uropean) MULE (drug-runner)
44 HOME SECRETARY    E R  [A TORY SCHEME]* {ref.: Theresa May}
 
Down
No. Answer Extra/
  ignored
  letters		 Wordplay
2 SNASH T   S(hocked) NAT(ionalist) SH (mum)
3 KITSCHY H   K(night) HITS (smacks) CH(ild) (roughl)Y
4 FELON   LO(ot) (stolen goods) in FEN (bog)
5 REPLAYS    A S  P(ipe) in RELY (bank)
6 TREMA    M  TREA(d) (put foot down)
7 RAREFY    F  RE (note) in RAY (anglicised form of RE)
8 OZONISER E   [ZERO NOISE]*
9 BLASH   ASH (remains) after BL (barrel)
10 LEG-PULL N   ENG(raver) PULL (shot) after L(ecturer)
11 SCARAMOUCH    R M  AA (volcanic rock) in S(mall) COUCH (sofa)
16 SOTTISIERS    T I  SO (Staff Officer) [TRIES]* S(pecial)
19 CEDI   (enhan)CED I(nterrogation)
21 ASIA   AIA (nursemaid) around S(on)
22 RINGINGS   N(ew) GIN (trap) in RIGS (team (of horses and carriage), N Am)
23 AGA   (l)AGA(n) (wreckage at the bottom of the sea)
26 ARRIERO O   OAR (blade) [(g)ORIER]*
27 FOREVER    F R  (Columb)O REVE(aling)
29 ESTELLA R   E(valuate) STELLAR (excellent)
31 INNATE    E  I (setter) NN (names) A T(enor)
34 SKLIM   MILKS< (exploits)
36 AD HOC T   AD (bill) H(ospital) COT< (bed)
37 SMOUT   TOMS< (cats) around U(niversity)
38 FREER H   F(eminine) ER (queen) after HER (she)
F(eminine) R (queen) E(xplaining) HER (she)
hit counter

 

13 comments on “Inquisitor 1396: Artwork by Hieroglyph”

  1. Thanks HG and Hieroglyph.

    I found quite a few of the clues difficult to crack/parse – a comment, not a criticism.
    I just wanted the ‘head’ of the sculpture to be a big bigger, so spent some time trying to make this happen. Silly of me, because the preamble gave the number of cells involved.

  2. Thanks, both.
    Strangely, on reading the preamble, I was convinced that it was going to be the Angel of the North. How many other works of art woud lend themselves to this sort of treatment? Mona Lisa seemed unlikely. That didn’t mean it was an easy solve, and in a few clues it still took a while to work out which letters had been ignored. Nice one, Hieroglyph.

  3. I possibly no longer qualify as an Inquisitor rookie (I got my first, and to date only, win earlier this year) but this one beat me entirely and I only managed to enter a handful. It’s been the same story with the three prior to this as well, although I was on a good run before that so I’m not too concerned yet.

  4. I, like HG, found this pretty straightforward. I tumbled to the symmetrical vertices pretty early and found ANGELO (an Italian artist?), and after a bit of reverse engineering found the Angel of . . . theme and was able to draw the picture and find the artist. Checked the numbers too.

    The thing that baffled me was 38D. I don’t think HG’s explanation works. The letters are in the wrong order (ER whereas the word has fREer). Ho came up with this explanation after we had agonised for some time:
    F(eminine) + R (queen) + E(xplaining first) + (H)ER.

    Thanks to HG for the blog and to Hieroglyph for a nice puzzle.

  5. Like others, I found this a pleasant and relatively straightforward solve. Like others too, I twigged quite early that the artwork was Angel of the North so the vertices were likely to be symmetrical around an axis in the middle of the grid.

    It helped that I marked up those solutions which seemed ‘obvious’ but which I couldn’t parse successfully first time round e.g. 18A, 27D 44A as I thought these were the ones most likely to have extra letters to be omitted and so it proved.

    Although I don’t have the clue wording in front of me I think I agreed with Hihoba@4’s parsing of 38D.

    Thanks Hieroglyph ! And HG for the blog.

  6. One of those weeks were I got the entire grid filled in, but failed to find all the extra/missing letters. I had enough extra letters to guess the the Angel, and could just about see it in the grid if I squinted. Totally failed to find the name on the diagonal, though.

    Something I always try and look out for when I go up to visit my sister, but from the train it looks an awful lot smaller than I imagined it would be.

  7. Thanks HG for the blog. We should have checked HEN in Chambers earlier as iwe douldn’t sort out the parsing.

    Bert noticed Antony Gormley (one of our favourite artists) before the end which helped us complete. The last few clues.

    We haven’t got all our scribbles but IHi’s parsing of 38d Sounds familiar too.

    Thanks Hieroglyph – more please!

  8. Hihoba @4: the parsing you give for 38d is exactly what I had in my notes; it was a confusion between ER (for “the Queen”) in 41a and R (for simply “queen”) at the intersecting 38d. Thanks – & I’ve amended the blog.

    I was more concerned with 22d: RINGINGS defined by “activated alarm bells?” – setter’s question mark, not mine.

  9. I also had an added A rather than a deleted T in 2 down which stopped me seeing the symmetry for a while. I finally spotted the diagonal name and it all worked out. Quite a gentle puzzle but great fun.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  10. Not a comment on this puzzle, but a plea for somebody to send me a scan of last Saturday’s Inquisitor so that I can blog it for next Wednesday. I’m not at home at the moment and didn’t get hold of an Independent last Saturday. I don’t have my full e-mail address book with me so can’t contact the obvious people directly to get a copy.

    Thanks

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