Inquisitor 1431: Life After Death? by Nimrod

31 comments on “Inquisitor 1431: Life After Death? by Nimrod”

1. Jaw-dropping. The puzzle, and the blog. Makes you realise what we almost lost.

2. If 1429 was hard and 1430 extraordinarily tough, 1431 was just ludicrously difficult. If I hadn’t had a lot of spare time last week I’d have packed it in before I’d got anywhere at all. Looking for the big red i was certainly a help, though I had it 2 columns to the right for a good while, so a hindrance in a way too.

   I have a minor quibble about the preamble, though in retrospect it seems obvious – the first 6 rotations were clear enough, but having turned to a spreadsheet after beginning to make a mess of the paper copy, I’d formatted it so the INDEPENDENT no longer stood out. I therefore missed the 5 other letter rotations at first and the way the preamble was worded had me convinced that I wasn’t looking for more 90 degree single letter rotations, but some other form of rotation, perhaps of sections of the grid. As has happened a couple of times recently then, I spent a long time looking for the final piece in the jigsaw, which perhaps slightly blunted the exhilaration of finishing what was a truly outstanding puzzle.

   Thanks though to Nimrod for this and so much more and another great piece of animation from kenmac!

   A final thought – should the isolated I in the bottom right corner be entered as an i, to complete the symbolic move of the IQ from The Independent to the i?

3. Oh, and I meant to mention the dastardly touch in 12D, where the definition part is surely just ‘.’!

4. @3 – brilliant! Well spotted.

   That was the very last one to fall and I just never noticed the innocuous “stop”.

5. Words fail us – jonsurdy@1 surely says it all.

   Far more time than usual was spent looking at an almost blank grid and we don’t recall ever having erased more letters as the solve progressed. THE GRIM REAPER fell out fairly quickly thank goodness. It was fortunate that we had more free time than usual.

   Bert was the one who noticed the possibile rotations.

   We are kicking ourselves now on two accounts. Firstly, we missed the definition in 12D. Secondly, we were puzzled by the further rotations – it all seems so obvious now. Kenmac – your blog shows this so beautifully, many thanks.

   Thanks and respect to Nimrod!

6. I tackled the puzzle shortly after completing a Magpie grade E puzzle (the hardest) and I found this harder. After a struggle I had 13 answers, but came to a full stop. At that point I was inclined to abandon it but asked John Nicholson if he fancied joining me for a combined solve, which he agreed to. He then solved some additional clues, and bit by bit we were able to piece together what we had until we reached the point when we independently discerned the vague shapes of i and Q and saw where this was heading. Towards the end we were solving separately. Many of the clues seemed impenetrable until solved, after which we wondered why we had struggled so much. In particular I don’t think either of us has missed quite so many cleverly hidden clues before. We were also puzzled by the five additional rotations, wondering if The Grim Reaper, who no longer had a victim, should change. As we both live abroad we are not familiar with the Independent’s front-page layout, but a website provided the exemplar.

   Did anyone else expect PHOEINI to become PHOENIX somehow? I was convinced that was pointing to the endgame.

   Congratulations to the blogger for a potentially difficult blog, and congratulations to all those who solved it solo. Whoever wins will deserve that bottle of prosecco. Perhaps it should be two.

   Delighted to see The Grim Reaper foiled.

7. After an initial but prolonged panic, this one revealed its true majesty slowly. Definitely one to savour.

   I saw the full stop in 12D and all the ‘hidden’ answers but only with a clear head and open mind on Sunday after a long spell getting nowhere on Saturday evening. There were lots of grunts of ‘doh, how did I not spot that one !’ to follow.
   As usual with these ‘suckit and see’ fill-in type puzzles I messed up the grid especially around 15, 16 and 17 across and 3,8 and 9 down all of which have ‘C’s in their answers.

   Like Andy Stewart@6, I did seriously look at the Phoenix and even The Waste Land in which Eliot (14A refers) has the death of the Phoenician….but then sanity prevailed followed by another long ‘doh’ as I saw The Independent banner on its side.

   Thanks Nimrod, this kept me going over the long Easter weekend and gave a real buzz when it was finally done.

   Puzzle of the year so far ? Maybe, it was a slog alright but an enjoyable one.

   Thanks kenmac too for the superb blog.

8. I even considered THE GRIM REAdER at one point!

9. John@8
   I think that would have described a great many of us.

10. A corker !

    Sharing a lot of the views already expressed, this was an incredible construction, though very very difficult. After a lot of staring at the clues I think I had 5 or 6 answers by the end of Saturday, mainly across clues. Fortunately, there were a few fairly generous anagrams to make a start. After that, it was a an arduous journey until I started to make sense of a possible ‘i’ taking shape…a few answers not in Chambers slowed my progress – some web searching needed for Ne Win and Nentsi.

    Even when I knew what was going on some of the downs were still very elusive, my last few in being those in columns 9 to 12; what a lovely sense of fulfillment. Though I needed a lie down after it.

    Not an easy IQ intro for any ‘i’ readers facing it for the first time.

    Highly admirable crossword and blog thanks both.

11. Well, this was my first try at an IQ, and I think I was left with a couple of clues solved, and an empty grid… Thankfully having more luck this week!

12. Me too Jon, but by referring back we should get there eventually!

13. Hi Jon & Nick,

    Welcome aboard – to paraphrase Bette, “Fasten your seat belt, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” And look forward to a plethora of PDMs (Penny Dropping Moments.)

    This week’s puzzle is by “everyone’s favourite” – a very prolific setter.

14. I had to give up on this one. It was all the more frustrating since once the i started to emerge I knew a Q was required in the RHS of the grid. All my tries at a Q shape were to no avail and no wonder looking at the correct shape as shown by Kenmac. None of mine were anywhere near that. But the real problem was I just found the clues too difficult and had too few cross-checking letters to guide me. Thank goodness I didn’t have to finish my Inquisitor solving career on a failure with my first “i” solution already in the post! I’ll get that bottle of Prosecco yet.

    Thanks to Kenmac and Nimrod.

15. Massive respect to those who managed to complete this. I solved a handful of clues, including 1ac, but was stumped by not knowing where to fill them in. I guessed a red ‘i’ would make an appearance in the final grid, but the challenge of having very few cross-checking letters was too much for me!

16. I couldn’t have solved this on my own, without help.

    OPatrick @3: I too missed the “.”;
    ken: can’t help with the DOR at 9d – anyone?
    Also had a problem with IL =”crook caught” in 6d, but your explanation is fine;
    And understanding the “five further rotations” was only resolved during a long Easter walk along the Welsh borders.

    In a sense relieved to know that seasoned solvers such as Andy Stewart (@6) found this tough – so, welcome to new contributors … they’re not usually this difficult. (But please don’t refer to ‘live’ puzzles before the submission date – even vague comments can be unwanted help. (Other sites aren’t so picky.)

    Thanks to setter & blogger – luckily there was much free time over the Easter break.

    PS ken @13: my understanding of “plethora” is “an unwelcome excess” – but I guess you didn’t mean it in that way. And well done to elmac for helping dad.

17. Ref:DOR, I twigged, as per blog, that it was ECUADOR minus A D’OR (a golden) though I hadn’t come across “issuing” as meaning “getting shot of” before. But I am now surprised to find that D’OR does not appear in my 2011 Chambers, either in its own right, or under OR.

    I didn’t complete the puzzle either … I knew pretty well what was going on, i.e death was THE INDEPENDENT, but assumed wrongly that life was the big red i in its black circle … and so it never occurred to me that I should be creating a Q in the grid as well.

    I also failed on two answers. NENTSI is not in my Chambers … or Bradford ! … and RECTA, for which “food outlets” or even “suppliers for food outlets” appear to be strange definitions. Surely “waste outlets” would have been more correct, and thus more helpful ?

    Plethora has never had a particularly pejorative connotation to me … excessive abundance, as in loaves and fishes, can often be good too ?

    Finally, good luck to IQ in its new home, although i readers, of a crossword mind, may have been a bit shattered by their first experience of it. And thanks to Nimrod for his part in securing its future, and Kenmac and daughter for elucidating this very tough puzzle.

18. I didn’t have a problem with d’or not appearing in Chambers, or elsewhere. It’s a well enough known term (e.g. Palme d’Or) to make it at most a minor concern in the face of the huge challenges this puzzle presented.

19. Hello, everyone. Now things have calmed down a bit and the Inquisitor seems to be safe for the time being in its new newspaper home, I thought a few notes from Ed might be appropriate. To you all, first and foremost, many thanks for being instrumental in keeping the Inquisitor alive. I know that your comments – both in the various threads here and on Dave Tilley’s excellent petition – have been read and noted by the decision-makers at the Indy and the i, and by the staff at Johnston Press. I hope that they are still open to persuasion where arguments relating to Beelzebub and the General Knowledge Jumbo are concerned: to my mind, it seems natural for the former to move online and for the latter to carve a niche in the i. We’ll have to wait and see, but both puzzles are too good to lose.

    To the many people (including friends at The Listener Dinner) who mailed, phoned and asked me in the weeks leading up to what turned out to be Decision Week (that leading up to March 26), I truly did not know what was going to happen to the majority of our puzzles, and especially the Inquisitor. I too had heard various rumours, but rumours is just what they were. Nobody knew. I’m afraid I must admit that I had, personally, just about given up on the survival of IQ, despite a couple of quite encouraging meetings and various assurances to the contrary from representatives of The Powers That Be. Editorially, I suppose, I had downed tools. In addition, of course, the appearance of the above puzzle was in doubt, since it depended on the one necessary outcome of deliberations, that of moving IQ to the i.

    Anyway, TPTB finally gave the nod of approval on Monday evening, the 21st, and here we are. We were still asked to keep it up our sleeves for the most part, but at least I was able to go ahead with preparing “Life After Death?” for the final Saturday: I can assure you that there has never been a more appropriate title for a puzzle! I felt I needed to mark the demise of The Independent newspaper properly, especially since I’ve worked for it since the start. But I do have heartfelt sympathy for new solvers, many joining us at the i, for whom “on the other side” this was a fearsome introduction to the Inquisitor. We’re past it now, it’s out of my system and we can, gratefully, return to what counts for normal in our universe.

    Thanks again!

    John

20. So many thanks John. That is a wonderful post.

    Viva Inquisitor!

21. Thanks John for all your efforts. Our Saturday’s would never have been the same without the IQ or in this, case our Saturday, Sunday and Monday1

22. Sorry – the last bit should read Monday!

23. Dear John – what bingy said, and with a raised Guinness,`Congratulations!` *clink* x

24. What a meaningful post from JH – on several levels. Glass raised with a heartfelt thanks.

25. Thanks, JH, for all your efforts. I have been doing/addicted to the Inquisitor, with varying levels of success, for many years. (I well remember the infamous ‘pi’ puzzle, that did not have one correct response). For a long time my family were exhorted to check that the Indy had a magazine in it before buying it (a lot did not in my area) and that often involved treking round many newsagents! So I was pleased when the Inquisitor moved into the main paper. I don’t know what I would have done on Saturdays if it had not survived. So thanks again to you and the team.

26. Thanks John, it must have been a very stressful few weeks with the future of this puzzle in doubt until almost the last minute, but you must be delighted with the result. You defeated us (and clearly many others) with the final puzzle in the Indy, but we look forward to doing battle with you and your setters in the i for a long time to come. Stephen & Judith Willis.

27. Thank you, indeed, John…..what would we do without you? (Probably something more constructive during the hours spent on the puzzles!)

28. Did not have ‘one correct response’? (John W No.25) You’re kidding? Really? I recall this brilliant puzzle and my absolute astonishment when, for the life of me I know not how – divine intervention perhaps?- I stumbled upon the key to the solution and viewed the resultant completed grid like a rabbit in headlights! Of course I have never submitted a solution to any puzzle. I always assume a deluge of correct entries and that winning a prize would be not dissimilar to winning the lottery and for 52 x 62p postage per year, the return would be like that of winning the lottery; an exercise in negative equity!
    (Fortuitously my degree was in Mathematics and Economics!)

29. Vic Marek #28, for approximately 6 years, between December 2009 and December 2015, I kept records of all IQ winners, and what became increasingly clear was that, for a lucky (?) few, it was far from like winning the lottery … I was working on the theory that there might be a weekly entry of c. 300, which, with three winners a week, would give a 1 in 100 chance of coming out of the hat. During those six years there were two who had won 15 times, one 11 times and two ten times. There were no less than eleven occasions when someone was a winner in two consecutive puzzles, and a further six occasions where someone won twice in three puzzles. The most mystifying results were two occasions where the same three names, IN THE SAME ORDER, came out of the hat in two puzzles only nine apart, and one, in two puzzles thirteen apart.

    I have been told, on this site, that all the above are completely within the bounds of probability. With a degree in mathematics and economics, you may well tell me the same. I would be happy to email you a pdf of my records plus analysis, if you were willing to give me your email address.

    By comparison, Listener statistics are meticulously compiled and published by John Green … in 2015 the Listener’s average weekly postbag was was 454, of which 396 were correct entries. I am not aware of any such “anomalies” ever occurring in its winner lists over recent years.

    Apologies if this has gone somewhat “off thread” … in no way is it a criticism of the work of setters, or of the two outstanding IQ editors during those six years, who have given us all such solving pleasure.

30. An ironic postscript to the last two posts, #28 and #29 … a charming lady from Parcelforce knocked on my door yesterday with what turned out to be an IQ bottle of prosecco … presumably for IQ 1432. Is there a corollary to the well-known proverb, something like “stroking the hand that smacks you” ?

31. I have been battering away on and off at this for weeks and finally given up. Huge respect to those who solved it and thanks to JH for the puzzle. Way too hard for me!

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