Seen Wan here a couple of times before, most recently on the Pennine Way (“Pub Crawl”). First noted the asymmetric grid … more often a positive indicator of a puzzle than a negative one, as it’s usually asymmetric for a good (thematic) reason.
Preamble: Solvers must follow an instruction given in wordplay to 38 clues by single extra letters that must be removed before solving. The eight remaining clues lead to thematic answers, two of which have no definition and appear where they once were. These eight answers are to be highlighted, together with a relevant 11-letter address.
Made average progress first time through the across clues, then solved 1d PURPLE quickly followed by 5d HAZE – aha, Jimi Hendrix I thought. Only to be immediately brought up short by 6d MESSIAH – hmm, what’s Handel got to do with Hendrix?
The top left quadrant was soon filled, HANDEL duly showed up at 25a, and then 13a WATER was nearly last to complete the top right quadrant. HENDRIX appeared a short time later at 23a, and a little bell started to ring – the two musicians lived in adjacent houses in London, albeit about 200 years apart. 
A quick check, and yes, they lived at 23 & 25 BROOK STREET. (The same numbers as their clues – very neat.) But the bottom half of the grid was almost empty. After solving a couple more clues, I could see that the relevant 11-letter address would slot in to the penultimate row; this certainly sped up the solving process, which in turn gave me enough of the letters removed from clues to deduce the instruction – add six vertical bars, reconstruct party wall – and created a positive feedback loop. MUSIC was found at 40a (to accompany WATER), and all that remained was FIRE for 32a – I still don’t see how the wordplay works here.
Adding the bars as instructed (between columns 7 & 8) leaves real words, but maybe that’s by the by. Thanks Wan – a couple of examples of a construction I don’t really like: having to interpret “god” as D in the anagram fodder for 7d and “take” as R similarly in 12a. And the wordplay in 22d & 31d has the format “X leaves Y“, yet for the clue to work it needs “Y leaves X“. But the ‘plus’es outweighed these ‘minus’es; all in all, quite satisfying.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Answer | Removal | Wordplay | |
| 1 | POOH-BAH | A | around | HOOP< (round) B (300) AH (by Jove) |
| 6 | MYSTIC | D | had | MY (ha) CITS< (townsmen, archaic sl) |
| 10 | PANDA EYES | D | done | AE (one, Scot) in PANDY (beating) E(nglish) S (seventy) |
| 12 | REEDED | S | deeds | [(cottag)E DEED R (take)]* |
| 13 | WATER | WAITER (tray) − I (one) | ||
| 14 | PARABLES | I | basis | PAR (equal value) ALES (beverages) around B(ass) |
| 15 | LLANO | X | sox | LLAMA (wool) − MA(t) (rug) + NO (not so) |
| 19 | BEGIN | V | veg | BIN (container) around EG |
| 20 | EDEMA | E | shame | [E(arth) MADE]* |
| 21 | NAAM | R | cart | A (article) in MAN< (cat) |
| 23 | HENDRIX | END (region) in HR (Croatia) + (f)IX (drive in) | ||
| 25 | HANDEL | HEL(m) (steering apparatus) around AND (circuit) | ||
| 27 | BOWSTRING | T | trim | BOW ST (address of runner once) + RING (rim) |
| 32 | FIRE | is this a double definition? “Get on with another one showing enthusiasm” Note: correct parsing given at comment 1 |
||
| 33 | ELAN | I | maid | [LEAN]* |
| 35 | FACTS | C | sect | C(atholic) in FATS (richest parts) |
| 38 | ANGORA | A | guana‘s | GOA (gazelle) around R(iver) after A (gua)N |
| 39 | CROTTLES | L | tool | CR (chrome) OTT (too much) L(ov)E(d i)S |
| 40 | MUSIC | UM< (let me think) SIC (such, Scot) | ||
| 41 | ROOKS | B | bright | R(ight) KOOKS (amoral people) − K(ing) |
| 42 | TREE | A | are | T(hes)E around RE |
| 43 | TASSIES | R | stokers | [TEA SSS (stokes × 3)]* around I (one) |
| 44 | DRYAD | S | sad | DRY (not green) + AD |
| Down | ||||
| No. | Answer | Removal | Wordplay | |
| 1 | PURPLE | P(rince) (Ha)L in PURE (modest) | ||
| 2 | OLEANDER | R | rover | O(ver) LEANDER (a swimming lover, ref. Hero & Leander) |
| 3 | HADAL | E | heard | LAD (nipper) A (one) H(ard) all< |
| 4 | ADDLE | C | crow | PADDLE (row gently) − P(oo) |
| 5 | HAZE | HAZEL (light-brown) − L(ength) | ||
| 6 | MESSIAH | MESSI (footballer, ref. Lionel M) AH (expression of joy) | ||
| 7 | SEALED | O | good | [FEEL D (god) AS]* − F(ine) |
| 8 | IRENIC | N | range | IRE (rage) NIC(e) (friendly) |
| 9 | CORONAL | S | son | ON in CORAL (orange-pink) |
| 11 | STAGED | T | thugs | DEGAS< (painter) around T(o) |
| 16 | TENOR CORS | R | invaders | COR (measure) in [SENT OR]* |
| 17 | BARBE | U | duo | BARBECUE (do outside) − CUE |
| 18 | PAXWAXES | C | chews | X (without) in PAW (hand) AXES (hews) |
| 22 | MATÉ | T | trial | MATERIAL (silk for example) − RIAL {contorted wordplay: “… leaves rial for tea”} |
| 24 | DUETTOS | P | put | [E(nglish) S(oprano) D(aughter) TO UT]* |
| 26 | OFFCUT | A | treat | OFF-CUTTER (delivery) − [TRE(t)]* |
| 28 | SNASTE | R | taper | T(ap)E after SANS< (without) |
| 29 | ROGUER | T | told | O(ld) GUE (fiddle) in RR (rule × 2) |
| 30 | NERITA | Y | tiny | [ARE TIN]* |
| 31 | GRACED | W | town | G(erman) TRACED (found) − T(on) {contorted wordplay: “… German found leaving ton”} |
| 34 | MOSEY | A | seat | [SOME]* (lorr)Y |
| 36 | ARBA | L | lace | A(ce) [BRA]* |
| 37 | YLKE | L | vinyl | (vin)Y (charcoa)L (blac)K (whit)E |
|
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FIRE -I think the wordplay to FIRE is FARE (get on) with I replacing A (with another one). Tricky.
I found this tough, partly because the extra letters were extremely well hidden, and partly because some entries caused me problems. For instance, my older Chambers doesn’t have PANDA EYES, a term I’ve not come across before; my football knowledge would fit on a postage stamp, so it took ages to get MESSI-AH; lastly, as I’m not a Hendrix afficiando, Purple Haze didn’t mean a lot to me. If it had been Purple Rain I’d have recognised Prince.
I thought the connection between the two musicians was really interesting, and the theme was very well incorporated in the puzzle. Many of the clues had wonderfully smooth surfaces, so for me it was very satisfying rather than ‘quite satisfying’.
I found this a good deal harder than recent weeks and eventually had to admit defeat on parsing FIRE so many thanks to Andy Stewart@1 for sorting that out.
I was also unaware of the geographical connection between Handel and Hendrix despite being a fan of both so it took quite a while for the penny to finally drop. when it did I realised what a clever way the theme had been incorporated into the grid.
Great stuff.
Many thanks to setter and blogger.
We found the puzzle quite challenging – as Andy Stewart says, some of the extra letters were well hidden.
We filled in all the answers but still had no clue about the theme – Handel and Hendrix seemed such an obscure pairing. Thankfully an internet search provided the link but thanks to HolyGhost for spotting the relevant placements of the two names – we missed that completely.
Thanks Wan for a very good solve with such a satisfying construction. Now that we know the address we will have to visit sometime.
Forgot to mention that we are still not sure about the parsing for FIRE. We wondered at one point whether it had anything to do with ‘getting on like a house on fire’. However, Andy Stewart is probably closer to the mark but there’s no real indication that a letter needs replacing. As he says – tricky!
A minor quibble though.
Andy Stewart @1: Thanks for parsing FIRE; “Get on with a different one …” would have been clearer. And I suspect that my ‘quite’ & your ‘very’ are fairly synonymous.
I found this the hardest IQ for a very long time – & I needed the blog for the parsing of more answers than I remember for any IQ since I got to the point of completing it every week – so thank you HolyGhost, for the explanations.
That’s a relief – I glanced at this this morning and saw HolyGhost’s breezy ‘I made average progress…’ and wondered if my brain had developed a slow puncture last week.
I found this fiendishly difficult, with a few clues on the wrong side of obscure to my taste, but ultimately very satisfying and an ingenious construction. After the first parse I had precisely one clue – NERITA – and after a second and third parse I had … still precisely one clue. In desperation I’d guessed at a Sherlock Holmes theme with Baker Street as the address, which happened to fit neatly across the second from bottom row. This led me to TREE and, somewhat less legitimately, ARBA. I very slowly started making progress from there, speeding up just marginally when I realised that the amended clues didn’t necessarily make sense.
Frustratingly, the only clue I couldn’t parse at all in the end was HENDRIX. I must admit I’d assumed FIRE was a double definition, having ‘to get on with another’ meaning to fire with them.
One thing that put me a bit off kilter was the phrasing of the instruction, which I had guessed as ‘add six vertical lines to construct party wall’. This meant I’d failed to find PURPLE HAZE for far longer than I should have, looking for some construction involving modes.
Having been out the country, this was my first Inquisitor for several weeks, and I found it took me a while to get my eye in again to start spotting the additional letters in the wordplay. Some clues fell fairly quickly, others less so and I eventually reached an impasse where I was still missing the theme and most of the SW corner. Having taken a short break and tried to get the ‘logic juices’ flowing, I eventually deduced HENDRIX from remembering that the actual Croatian word for CROATIA is HRVATSKA = HR….and the rest followed.
I went with OPatrick@7 on FIRE, I thought it was a double definition although Andy Stewart@1’s parsing works.
Don’t know what rating this puzzle is….a 5 maybe, but probably not, although, being my first IQ for a while, it gets a personal 5 from me.
Many thanks to Wan and to HG for the blog.
Thanks to HG for clearing up a lot of unfinished business for us, but you make it sound quite straightforward! We found this a real slog, despite identifying the likely theme early, because so many of the clues were very difficult. We got going in the bottom third and quickly saw the address emerging. As a quizzer as well as a crossworder I was aware that Handel and Hendrix are commemorated in blue plaques on adjacent houses in Brook St, Mayfair, but it took us several sessions over the course of the week to pull it all together, with none of the thematic answers jumping out at us. The musicians’ names had to be there somewhere, but even going through all the 6- and 7-letter clues did not help us. We got them by checking precisely which houses they inhabited, but never worked out how those 2 clues worked. Nor did we identify all the extra letters, but we found enough to know what to do at the end.
Thanks to Wan for a severe challenge. We must be due an easier one this weekend!
I agree with the general concensus above. Definitely the hardest one this year for me. Even when I had found the theme, it took an extended lunchtime and an increasingly dog-eared Chambers to complete the grid. Lots of ingenious, well-disguised extra letters although a few iffy constructions as mentioned. A long slog with a satisfyingly triumphant conclusion!
Thanks to W for “keeping me away from other things that I should be doing” and to HG for a thorough analysis.
Thanks for the blog and some kind comments and my apologies to those of you who found the puzzle too tough. I think that the word I fear reading most is ‘slog’ so I get the message. In fact if it is any consolation at all I got the message from my previous IQs and subsequently withdrew one so as not to burden you with another toughie; I probably should have withdrawn this one too. There are setters, like the IQ editor, who can set puzzles to precise levels of difficulty but I can’t claim to be one of them. If I write an easy clue I invariably change it because I think it more suitable to a basic cryptic puzzle. I think that I have to accept that I am a setter of tough puzzles and look for suitable publications. Fortunately for IQ solvers, and I am one, there is a terrific bunch of regular IQ setters who hit the right level consistently.
Best to you all.
Slog? Possibly, but in the sense that getting up at 2am to see the sunrise from the top of Kilimanjaro is a slog.
I’m intrigued to some of the comments about the difficulty of this one. I have failed to complete a few Inquisitors this year as they have been too tricky for me (e.g. #1408 was completely abandoned). This one certainly wasn’t a walk in the park but I managed to get a complete grid in reasonable time (for me, anyway).
The Handel/Messiah connection established itself pretty quickly (being a fan of both Georg[e] and Lionel), and water music was quick to follow as a consequence.
I did wander around the houses a bit before Hendrix was filled in – for some reason I really cannot explain, there was a Neil Young song “From Hank to Hendrix” which became a kind of subconscious offering which was gnawing away in the back of my mind. Once the Hendrix / Handel connection was found thanks to Mr Google the rest followed. I also struggled a bit with Fire, and also Offcut (ah, of course, raps knuckles)
I loved the way the house numbers matched the lights. Very clever…thanks Wan for more fun and enjoyment and of course to HolyGhost for another great blog.
I also felt the clueing was rather tough on this one, when often I knew what the answer had to be, but didn’t know how it worked. And yet… this didn’t stop me working out both the theme and the instruction, and a very satisfying theme it was (once it was clear that Handel wrote no Purple Symphony)
I’m glad that there were one or two others that didn’t find this as hard as most solvers seem to have done. For me, I could list maybe half a dozen other puzzles this year that I found substantially more difficult. And for those, when I first looked at the blog expecting a similar experience to be reported, the blogger had often had next to no problem at all.
I guess it depends on whether solver & puzzle click. So don’t worry Wan – keep ’em coming. And if you do pop back, please let us know whether Andy Stewart’s parsing of FIRE (@1) is what you had in mind.
Re FIRE – Andy’s parsing is exactly what I intended. I was using another in the sense of a different. A bit cheeky I suspect but then cryptic wordplay often is.
I just wanted to acknowledge that I probably sent this puzzle to the wrong publication and it is entirely my fault. The truth of the matter is that I wasn’t familiar with the IQ until a few years ago and I didn’t realise that traditionally it was an easier puzzle than say the Listener or EV. I only found that out when I read comments on this site towards the end of last year by which time I already had two more puzzles in the pipeline. After reading those comments and comments on one of mine that had been published I withdrew what I thought would be the harder of the two. Btw that went to Magpie where it was graded D and featured as a prize puzzle. It was really well-received so I am glad that those comments led me to withdraw it because I don’t think that it would have been so well-received here. I think that it is the setter’s responsibility to ensure that the puzzle is the right level of difficulty for solvers’ enjoyment and I accept that I haven’t got that right with the IQ, so far at least.
Can I just emphasise that whilst I found this hard, I would be really disappointed if the IQ didn’t throw up occasional puzzles with this level of challenge. What matters more than anything is the quality, and knowing that I can trust the editors to ensure that the puzzles are solvable and that the work we have to put in will be rewarded in the end. In most cases, and very much so in this case, this is true.
Btw HG if you are still looking in, I have always been happy that ‘X leaving Y’ can mean ‘x abandoning y’ in cryptic wordplay and can only assume that the editor and testers feel the same.