18 comments on “Inquisitor 1503: Obeying a Rule by Eclogue”

1. 

   Hihoba

   #1 - Wed 23rd Aug 17, 07:01

   
   

   Thanks for the blog Kenmac and the puzzle, Eclogue. I hadn’t spotted the title anagram, so thanks for that.

   I was much delayed by thinking that the definition for 1A was sprig, and so having ERO?ND etc. which made no sense. I found GRAINGER first, then the PE of shape and the LU of solute led me to the theme. The unknown number of extra letters made solving quite difficult.

   I think the crosses indicate the positions of the protagonists on the floor of Grace Brothers.

   I too failed to parse 29D, without even the feeling that I had understood it at the time!

   Can’t help with the earworm though!

2. 

   HolyGhost

   #2 - Wed 23rd Aug 17, 07:15

   
   

   29d: GROUCHO

3. 

   Hihoba

   #3 - Wed 23rd Aug 17, 07:47

   
   

   Thanks HG – of course!

4. 

   Jon

   #4 - Wed 23rd Aug 17, 08:38

   
   

   After a difficult couple of weeks, something a bit on the lighter side. 🙂 Thoroughly enjoyable, and a nice PDM when I spotted what those extra letters were spelling out.

5. 

   Kippax

   #5 - Wed 23rd Aug 17, 09:07

   
   

   Despite not being very knowledgeable of the show, I really enjoyed this. I couldn’t recall seeing this method of producing spare letters before and I found it a lot of fun to decipher them. 31d in particular was a highlight. The breakthrough came midweek when I had managed to get GROUND and then the next few letters ruled out ‘CONTROL’ and FLOOR appeared. The second thing to come to mind was actually this track by the band Ladytron, which I knew was similar to the ‘Are you being served?’ theme. From there things began to fall more quickly, although I did have to look up a list of characters as I could only think of a couple of them without assistance.

   I assumed that the Xs were used to make it simpler than cramming the full words into the grid, but I love Hihoba’s theory about the floor placements and hope that is the case.

   Also, I think 29d should be GROUCHO, as in the Marx brother. I must confess that I also had BRONCHO until I fortunately mentioned it to Terrier and was put right. I don’t understand the parsing either way, but it certainly fits the definition.

   Possibly my favourite of the year so far – many thanks Eclogue!

6. 

   Kippax

   #6 - Wed 23rd Aug 17, 09:09

   
   

   Ah, spent so long making sure I had my hyperlink right that others beat me to it with 29d.
   Thanks kenmac for the blog.

7. 

   HolyGhost

   #7 - Wed 23rd Aug 17, 09:49

   
   

   29d wordplay: MUCH (a great deal) – M(oney) in GROO(f) (face, Scot)

   As for 47a, SINH is not a trig function, it’s one of the hyperbolic functions.

   Anyway, thanks kenmac & Eclogue. Perhaps the setter(s) could shed light on the significance (if any) of the location of the X’s, and on the title being an anagram of ARE YOU BEING + L.

8. 

   kenmac

   #8 - Wed 23rd Aug 17, 10:54

   
   

   d’oh! Marx Brothers are (were) the best and I failed to spot GROUCHO.

   I’ll update the blog a bit later – thanks HG.

9. 

   David Langford

   #9 - Wed 23rd Aug 17, 11:56

   
   

   Thanks, Eclogue and Kenmac! Never watched the show, but when I had a couple of names my wife remembered nearly all the rest, and Wikipedia confirmed – the theme song is online, too. Took a while to parse GROUCHO as MUCH (minus M for money) within most of GROOF (Scots face), but “Fraternal funster” from “Fraternal fortunes” was brilliant. Much enjoyed, although I too wondered whether “trig function” could be legit for SINH.

10. 

    Neil Hunter

    #10 - Wed 23rd Aug 17, 12:27

    
    

    Fearsome preamble compensated for by generous clueing. I enjoyed this one very much.

    I got Grainger quite quickly, and then Ground Floor loomed – and, to my horror, I immediately knew where we were. It doesn’t go away.

    Many thanks to Eclogue and Kenmac (I too was confused by the rule being obeyed).

11. 

    John Lowe

    #11 - Wed 23rd Aug 17, 13:19

    
    

    At 9d “Stand with decorative display on floor? Au contraire!”: Floor (= étage) + On (= re) gives étagère – so the contrary of “on floor”.

    Thanks to Kenmac and Eclogue.

12. 

    Terrier

    #12 - Wed 23rd Aug 17, 16:01

    
    

    We too enjoyed this one although never fans of the show. Is anybody going to admit to this? It would have been much tougher if GROUND F had not quickly emerged from the early across clues. Like Kippax we expected “CONTROL” to be the second word, but F made FLOOR almost inevitable. The sitcom’s opening then came to mind and was quickly confirmed by PEACOCK. Multiple-letter clashes are never easy, but it helped that there was a fairly small, finite number of characters, some of whom we knew with the rest being easily findable. LOI for us was the very cleverly clued GROUCHO.

    I’ll be very impressed if there is indeed geographical significance to the location of clashes, as per last year’s Cluedo puzzle by Serpent, but life is too short to start looking for the store’s floorplan.

13. 

    PeeDee

    #13 - Thu 24th Aug 17, 10:39

    
    

    Yet another DNF for me. This is starting to get a bit demoralising. My problem this time was my failure to properly read the instructions. I failed to register that the clashes were “of more than one letter” and so failed to understand how to solve and enter these thematic the clues. I did got the Are You Being Served opening by searching a combinations of words on Google, which left a bit of a sinking feeling and didn’t exactly inspire me to continue. Its not a program that I ever watched or have any desire to.

    Thanks to all.

14. 

    PeeDee

    #14 - Thu 24th Aug 17, 10:41

    
    

    PS I meant to write “get” and “It’s”

15. 

    bridgesong

    #15 - Thu 24th Aug 17, 10:49

    
    

    I felt a real sense of achievement in completing this, although I didn’t spot the significance of the title. GROUCHO held me up for a long time, not helped by the fact that I had mistakenly entered SINE for SINH.

    Many thanks to setter and blogger.

16. 

    Chris Jones

    #16 - Thu 24th Aug 17, 13:22

    
    

    Nearly gave up on this several times and, even though after a while, I’d got a sufficient quantity of the surplus letters to guess at GROUND FLOOR, STATIONERY, LEATHER GOODS (missing out on PERFUMERY until after my PDM), I didn’t establish a definite connection (though it was hazing around in my subconscious) with the TV comedy. That is until I suddenly twigged SLOCOMBE was one of the hidden names. After that it became a lot more straightforward (though never easy) and I was able to use the remaining redundant letters to help solve some of the clues which had evaded solution up to then.

    I suspected there might be a hidden anagram in OBEYING A RULE, but neglected to remove the redundant L.

    Having completed it though, after a run of several almost completeds, I felt very satisfied and tip my hat to Eclogue. I’ve no idea how you devise these things but please don’t stop!

    Like some of the other commentators, I was never a fan of the show but enough info about it has percolated into my background culture (or should that be “clutter”) for me to recognise several names – the rest were found with a quick Google.

    Thanks too to Kenmac for his explanatory blog.

17. 

    bridgesong

    #17 - Fri 25th Aug 17, 09:37

    
    

    Having had a preview of this week’s puzzle, the wording included in the solution to this puzzle is:

    Clash cells spell GRAIN/GER, PE/ACOCK, SLO/COMBE, BRAH/MS, HUMP/HRIES and LU/CAS in possible floor-plan positions (the block representing the central stand/podium).

    So Hihoba’s surmise was correct.

18. 

    Raich

    #18 - Fri 25th Aug 17, 15:36

    
    

    Thanks for the blog, Kenmac. Would like to redress the balance a bit re comments on the series in that I thought it was one of the very best.

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