Inquisitor 1482: Changes by Lato

11 comments on “Inquisitor 1482: Changes by Lato”

1. The usual thanks to Lato and Hihoba for another fun puzzle and analysis. I was pleased to see THESEUS and eventually remember the SHIP, but likewise had some difficulty with all the extra letters. Eventually got the HANDLES bit and started thinking about AXE, moving on to BROOM via memories of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where Granny Weatherwax’s broom has had both head and handle many times replaced by skilled dwarf mechanics but still doesn’t fly reliably. Granny didn’t fit but the BROOM did; guilty Googling then unearthed that Wikipedia article.

   My wife used to watch Only Fools and supplied the theme song from memory when required for a past IQ, but had no recollection whatever of Trigger’s Broom. So it goes.

2. I found the grid fill quite difficult, and also failed to parse the central, key phrase, though it was clear what it had to be. I made a mess of the extra letters and had to go back over some of the clues again to get them right, but got there in the end. The endgame I’m afraid was all down to Google. 🙂

3. PARADOX and THESEUS unlocked the theme fairly early on … but, as so often, when Pop Groups or TV series are concerned, I too had to tap into Google, so much easier than, in the good old days, having to trek up to the local library through wind and rain, in an often vain attempt to find relevant information of the shelves of the Reference department. “Ship of Theseus + modern equivalents”, swiftly brought up the YouTube clip of Trigger’s explanation.

   Ronnie Barker was clearly involved in a similar replacement job when he was famously buying his Fork ‘Andles ?

   Did anyone else notice that our hairy old friend ANOA was an answer in the previous IQ, 1481, as well ?

   Good fun, anyway, thanks all..

4. I got to the Ship of Theseus and the paradox rather earlier than I deserved; but never found the modern variant.

   It reminded me of a slightly different theory, which I encountered in Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman, where a policeman’s cycling on cobblestones brings about so much molecular exchange between bicycle and policeman that it becomes moot which one is which.

   Thanks to Hihoba and Lato.

5. This was tough going at first, but well worth persevering with for the PDM. We couldn’t solve 25a, but eventually it became clear what the phrase was. We were aware of the paradox in the context of axes and brushes, but did not realise it went back to Plutarch. Wikipedia enlightened us and the extra letters led to the modern version.

   Thanks to Lato for a fair and fun puzzle.

6. I often don’t get on with Lato‘s puzzles, so I feel it is incumbent on me to say that I rather enjoyed this one.
   I now realise that I forgot to parse the central wordplay-only clue, so thanks to Hihoba for that.
   And as he says, not as stiff a test as the previous two puzzles.
   Once again, thanks go to setter & blogger.

   (And Murray Glover @3: yes, I did note the reappearance of ANOA.)

7. Terrier@5 – our experience was very similar although we didn’t find the modern version on wiki. If we remember correctly we looked at what could replace the middle row and searched on google.

   The PDM was really worth the effort so thanks to Lato for the smiles.

   Thanks Hihoba for another excellent blog.

8. Had I thought about it from the start I probably would have spotted that the word to be changed was 25A, but not doing so immediately made it significantly harder to get started. However, realisation soon dawned and progress was much more rapid after that – although 12D not being a changed word, and so having an extra letter instead, caused some confusion later on.

   My first guess at 1A was ‘PANGRAM’, which I thought was going to be a necessary hint for identifying one or more of the changes. As is often the way, it took me a while to shake that idea.

   I got SHIP OF THESEUS without Google, but I’m cross with myself now for turning to it too soon, feeling pressed for time, to find the contemporary version. I had a vague memory of a broom (which seemed probable for the last few letters) being a version of this paradox – I suspect more likely from Terry Pratchett, as David Langford reminds me, than Only Fools and Horses. The frustrating part about Googling was it also gave away the message spelled out by the extra letters before I’d sorted these out in full.

   I think I remember this being harder than some others have suggested, and have made a positive note about this next to the grid – there have certainly been some enjoyable challenges recently and this was another classic IQ that ticked all the boxes for me.

   I never did understand why the whole ship-of-Theseus-thing was considered a paradox, though. You have to adhere to some strange kind of Platonic idealism for it to be a problem.

9. Superb puzzle. I got SHIP OF THESEUS and immediately thought of Trigger’s Broom: I think this link had been on Only Connect fairly recently. I thought the construction was superb; especially how there are exactly the correct number of clues in which to spell out the phrase and the three unclued words. I loved every minute of this and I wish I had more time to tackle IQ puzzles.

   Thanks to Lato, Hihoba and the IQ team.

10. (Belated) thanks to Hihoba for the blog and to others for their comments.

11. I had not heard of Trigger’s Broom and didn’t spot it by Googling “Ship of Theseus” either. I was still looking for “My Grandfather’s Axe” right up to the end. I didn’t manage to complete the bottom-left part of the grid, so thanks to Hihoba for enlightening me there.

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