Inquisitor 1420: Coming Through by Phi

7 comments on “Inquisitor 1420: Coming Through by Phi”

1. A lot going on here, which gave an interesting and enjoyable challenge. Unlike HolyGhost, I didn’t solve 1A until much later, which I suspect probably made it all significantly harder. On the other hand, I found it only took a handful of clues to make it obvious what the redundant words were going to be, so the messages emerged early on – perhaps a slight weakness in the puzzle? My first two across pairs were ALONE and EIKON and LIPOMA and AQUINO, which convinced me that the ‘sliding right over left’ involved overlapping words, with the end of the left one becoming the start of the right. It took me a while to sort out the legacy of this misconception, but even so a relatively gentle solve.

   I’m not sure I see the issue with either LAKSA or ALIEN. The ‘not originating there’ part is presumably in the context of the full double clue, which refers to a French department.

   One final question I would have had had I sent in the final grid – should the letters seen through the holes be left where they were or written in the corresponding holes on the right?

   Thanks to Phi and HolyGhost – an intriguing puzzle and a blog that does it justice.

2. I’ve put up a setter’s blog on this puzzle at http://phionline.net.nz/setters-blogs/coming-through/

   Just to be clear, it was my 134th Inquisitor – Mr Hennings’s otherwise exemplary database doesn’t cover the earlier years of the Independent magazine puzzle, when I had a fair few published before Schadenfreude made his appearance on the scene. [A very welcome appearance, I should add (and you should also look out his puzzles over the years in the Cambridge Alumnus Magazine, if you want more).]

3. I came to this puzzle late, resting after my efforts with the 3D in 1418. My solving experience almost exactly mirrored HG’s.

   In response to OPatrick at #1, I assume a blank grid with the instruction in the left half is what should be sent in.

   Excellent stuff from Phi and HG as always.

4. I enjoyed the extended challenge very much. I was held up for some time by the fact that TOKONOMA and BANDPASS are not in Chambers (although band-pass filter is there). It was very satisfying, once the grid was complete, to follow the instructions and deduce the message.

5. I hope the long preamble did not put anyone off, because – as is often the case – this was not as tough as it might at first have seemed to newcomers. We thought the second word of 1a was pretty obvious and this made it easy to get some down answers in the top half without worrying about location. Once they were in, the upper across answers fell into place quite smoothly too. The lower half took longer, but it helped that most of the spare linking words were not difficult to identify. This also meant that the hidden instructions could be identified without much doubt, which is rarely true when one is looking for extra/missing letters or misprints, but we did find it much harder finding the post-slide final message and spent quite a while convincing ourselves that it simply meant what it said.

   Huge respect to Phi for compiling well over 100 of these puzzles.

6. Agree fully with Terrier@5 – spotting the additional word in most clues wasn’t too difficult and getting the key clues at 1A and 18A went a long way to making progress. Mild panic set in at first trying to interpret the instructions but once rationality started to kick in they made good sense, helped by spotting the word ME*SAGE in the grid.

   A nice challenge so thanks to Phi and to HG for the blog.

7. Very enjoyable and one that I completely finished for a change. I wonder what actually got sent in to win the Prosecco: a complete grid with highlighted cells; a grid with most of the letters erased; an envelope with 19 cells individually cut out from the grid?

   Thanks to both HG and Phi.

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