18 comments on “Inquisitor 1495: Two’s Company by Lato”

1. Well – we are almost speechless.

   We are on holiday and haven’t brought the completed puzzle with us but we remember that we were left with a number of clues unsolved but had sorted out the theme. We started looking forletter pairs in the grid to help us.

   In the end we found the list that kenmac has included in the blog and were amazed.

   What an amazing puzzle, devilish to solve but fun when you got there and a great ending.

   Thanks kenmac and Lato.

2. Frustrating for a while, but delightful in the end – though perhaps a couple of questionable general knowledge based clues, as you highlight kenmac.

   I had a couple of other possible 2-letter homonyms: CASSIE, pronounced the American way as KC and, at a stretch, ISLE as IL?

   I did struggle with the bottom right, largely because I had CHOPS for a long while at 32D, thinking of that famous cut, beef chops!

3. I thought this was wonderful. I struggled to see what was going on until I got KANANAGH; as soon as I solved that clue I thought of KAVANAGH QC and I could see the misprint “Thaw silk” and I was away. What I thought was really brilliant was the surface of the 11 thematic clues: “One show/t in series”, “Raves/l here occasionally” etc. I also thought it clever that there are several red herrings in the grid (PIQUET, TEPEE, CUTIE etc). Great puzzle. Thanks to Lato, John and his IQ team and kenmac for the super blog.

4. Agree it was great fun. Route into the thematics was also KAVANAGH as the show was the only thing I could think of. AUDEN fell shortly after. I agree these clues proved tough despite being completely fair – took ages to match a clue to Classic. Solved the two SN and XS around the same time which confirmed what was going on. Allowing for some questionable pronunciation I manged to find 10 of these! The only hold up then was jumping to the conclusion that all letter pairs would be pronounced initialisations (which would have precluded lay-by) but a bit of back solving the remaining letters cleared up the final clues.

5. Sorting out those thematic clues took an absolute age, trying to work out what the misprints might be. Twice as long as the rest of the grid fill, which wasn’t as difficult as some we’ve had. An enjoyable PDM when I finally spotted the letter pairs, and the last two we were missing. 🙂

6. Lovely. Others have already said it all. Yes, the misprinted thematics were devious indeed. Letter pairs, as a concept rather than an exact phrase, came to mind quite earlier thanks to the helpful WH AUDEN and PG TIPS, but collecting the full set was a struggle. It wasn’t until after triumphantly highlighting EXCESS and then CAYENNE that I noticed ESSEN and started to worry that I’d highlit too soon. Then the realization of how many red-herring words were lurking.

   I never did get the hang of the “general knowledge” definitions of PEP (no unchecked letters so it had to be right) and PIQUET (where I vaguely assumed that army piquet/picket duty might now cover being a driver). Oops.

7. For my part, I thought the general knowledge questions were fair (Irlam is obscure, but it is on maps). Though Barry tripped me up.

   If I’d remembered JR’s surname, I probably would have got there; as it is I really struggled to connect the thematic answers to the misprints. What, with lay, Kavanagh and Auden, I assumed we were in poetic territory. Might issue 16 of some classic journal supply a solution?

   Congratulations to all who solved, thanks to Kenmac for an entertaining blog and Lato for a challenge too far.

8. With (WH) AUDEN as the only thematic solved, I was struggling until KAVANAGH (QC) emerged – and a bell rang: I’d seen this once before. I looked in my records and found Inquisitor 39 (the only IQ puzzle where I completely failed to get any unclued entries or other thematic material) – that time the clue was “Shaw part”, not “Thaw milk”. It also had the identical “Ten”/”Tea” leading to (PG) TIPS! (Don’t bother checking the blog – none of the then bloggers seems to have made much headway with it, simply referring to the published solution.) Anyway, I felt a bit let down.

   The twist here was all the red herrings – for fitting them into the grid Lato is to be commended. And to Ken for not giving up – you seem to have been content that you pushed on to the end. (IQ1379, which you also blogged, came to mind as well.)

   And who knows how long “City boss” will survive as a suitable clue for PEP.

9. This was a tough one which proved well worth persevering with after a slow start, particularly with the thematic clues. As with others above, KAVANAGH (QC) was the turning point for us and it was all downhill after that. We got the two to highlight by a process of elimination, without realising that there were several other answers that sounded like letter pairs.

   I have no problem at all with general knowledge answers as long as the wordplay is accurate and unambiguous (surely many crossword enthusiasts are quizzers too) and much prefer these to an excess of obscure Scottish or archaic poetic words which one rarely sees outside crosswords. The definition of IRLAM was a bit dodgy, though. “Part of Salford” or “Town near Salford” would have been better, as it lies within the boundaries of that city and borough. But that certainly does not detract from an excellent puzzle, for which Lato is to be warmly thanked. And well done to kenmac for a very impressive blog.

10. Great puzzle! Bravo to Lato for getting so much thematic material into the grid. The thematic clues were lovely with very polished surfaces. My “way in” was picking up Auden and Ewing and wondering about the initials. Figaro added to this but then I became fixated on all the thematics having leading initials and not trailing. Hence a lot of time spent on trying to integrate PJ Kavanagh into the mystery.

    Once I deduced the misprint that gave me the secondary PDM and I was away. The final part of the endgame all fitting in nicely. Part crossword, part jigsaw, part Only Connect. Lovely.

    Super puzzle and blog. Thanks again to both.

11. As a native of Warrington I have no complaint about 3 down! Great puzzle. Kavanagh was my PDM.

12. Many thanks to kenmac for the blog and to others for their comments.

13. I enjoyed this. I got most of the pairs but didn’t manage to find them all. I Googled some of the unclued entries for a while, but really I am into crosswords rather than quizzes so in the end I lost interest.

    I remember Irlam, because one afternoon of heat the train stopped there. I had had to get off because I was on the wrong train; I was on a Warrington bound train and I should have been on the Altrincham line. Strange how at the time I never realized that 50 years later this would come in handy.

    Thanks all.

14. Failed miserably at this, well done to everyone else. Can somebody explain the context in which T = 160 please?

15. Ryaaan
    “… explain the context in which T = 160 please?”

    Medieval Roman numerals.

16. Interesting, thanks…couldn’t figure out any way to Google it.

17. Ryaaan @16: try looking in Chambers – it’s got lots of medieval Roman numerals (more than half the letters of the alphabet)

18. Thanks for the suggestion; think it might be time I picked up a copy.

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