I (Hi) shall be in the USA on holiday when this is published, and as both Ho (hospitalised) and Ba (retired from IQ) are unavailable, I may not be able to respond to queries or comments promptly (or even at all). It will depend on free WiFi! The rubric read:
Asterisked clues comprise a definition to one word or phrase plus wordplay to another differing from it by one or more letters; in these clues extra numbers in brackets count the coinciding letters. Choosing one or other answer from each (11 of each sort) gives two different ways of filling the grid; each contains thematic material, as entries plus a group of contiguous cells. Solvers must use the puzzle’s title as a clue to determine one entry and thus the correct fill, and highlight the 28 cells which show the material.
I found the clues a mixture of the quite easy and the pretty impenetrable – no harm in that, just commenting. The first two asterisked clues (1A and 12A) were (6,7:4) and (5:0) – so only four letters in common between 18 grid entries! Fortunately the others were limited to one or two changed letters, so were rather easier. 12A flagged HEART (anagram of EARTH) quite obviously, though the significance of that was lost on me until the endgame.
I plowed on for several sessions, getting a little further each time. The bottom half contained very few asterisked clues, but this was compensated for in difficulty by unusual words including tyloses, perigastritis, netsuke and cottier.
I found that one possible entry for 1A started DOCTOR and that the other entry for 12A was LOUIS, but the centre of the puzzle continued to elude me. I had entered both of the dual entry letters in the spaces for them, and a glance at 1A during a fallow period suddenly suggested DOCTOR (Christiaan) BARNARD who performed the world’s first HEART (12A) transplant. I had also found that that an alternative for DOCTOR at 1A was DENISE, so when I Googled Christiaan Barnard I was delighted to find that the heart donor was DENISE DARVALL, the alternate entry for 1A. Also the article named the recipient as LOUIS (12A) WASHKANSKY. Washkansky is 10 letters, and 1A + 12A = 18 letters, so this added up to the 28 letters mentioned in the rubric.
I still had only partially filled the centre of the grid, but was able to was able to locate W???KANSKY in the asterisked clues in an arc to the right of centre, and the alternate letters were T???SPL(S)NT This suggested TRANSPLANT, so we had DOCTOR BARNARD, who performed a HEART TRANSPLANT from donor DENISE DARVALL to recipient LOUIS WASHKANSKY.
The symmetry of the letters in the middle suggested that I look in specific cells for the missing tRANsplAnt and wASHkansky and the entries appeared to be in a heart shape in the middle of the grid – very appropriate. I eventually worked out the centre of the grid – several misreads and misunderstandings having contributed to my difficulties and was left only with deciphering the title.
Thus there were four possibilities: 1) Denise Darvall + Heart Transplant 2) Doctor Barnard + Heart Transplant 3) Denise Darvall + Louis Washkansky and 4) Doctor Barnard + Louis Washkansky. I thought that DENISE DARVALL provided the heart, filling LOUIS WASHKANSKY, though it could be argued that Doctor Barnard was the “Name” and the “Filling” was the heart transplant. Was the rubric’s “11 of each sort” supposed to help? I decided to annotate my table for Denise Darvall + Louis Washkansky and found that it needed 13 Wordplay clues and 9 Definition clues. Also Doctor Barnard + Heart Transplant would be 13/9 Definition to Wordplay. So neither of these could be the solution. Checking Denise Darvall + Heart Transplant and Doctor Barnard + Louis Washkansky I found that they both required 11 Wordplay and 11 Definition clues (see red and green entries in the table below) so it must be one of these two options.
The title (Provider of Name Filling Entry), is a clue to the word DONOR (thanks Kenmac). “Provider ” is the definition and “Name Filling Entry” is the wordplay: N(ame) in DOOR (entry). So 1A must be DENISE DARVALL, provider and donor and the remaining 15 cells must contain HEART TRANSPLANT by the “11 of each sort” rule.
Excellent crossword Ifor, good grid, good clues and a stunning PDM and, though I struggled with the last bit of the endgame, it was entirely fair.
Asterisked Clues – final grid entry/alternative |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay | Answer |
| 1a | Operator, revised and different entirely (6,7;4) | DOCTOR BARNARD | [REVISED AND]* (different) + ALL (entirely) | DENISE DARVALL |
| 12a | Old French coin in disturbed earth (5;0) | LOUIS | [EARTH]* (disturbed earth) | HEART |
| 18a | Awkward position – river’s getting into capsized canoe (6;5) | CORNER | [CANOE]* round R(iver) | CORNEA |
| 24a | Came round, all thinking the same (5;3) | AWOKE | AT ONE (all thinking the same) | ATONE |
| 26a | Brief cheer after expressing good wishes for hanging (5;4) | TORAN | TO (expressing good wishes) + RAH (brief cheer) | TORAH |
| 27a | Music’s without alto, dead (=obsolete) from then on (4;3) | SENS | SEN (musical term for without) + A(lto) | SENA |
| 31a | Sort diesel engine’s casing going wrong (4;2) | KIND | DI(e)S(e)L minus E(ngin)E going wrong (anagram) | SILD |
| 2d | A number of deliveries (several packages) (4;3) | OVER | Hidden in sEVERal | EVER |
| 3d | One who quotes contents of printed works (5;4) | CITER | [(p)RINTE(d)]* | NITER |
| 4d | Greenish-yellow colour of rash moving up the back (5;3) | OLIVE | HIVES (rash) move the S up | SHIVE |
| 5d | Local (dialect) affected with fear, uncovering dry-rot in new construction (4;2) | EERY | Uncover [(d)RYRO(t)]* | RORY |
| 6d | Paintings awaiting frames (3;2) | ART | awAITing (frames = hidden in) | AIT |
| 7d | Thoughtless nagging’s no good at all (4;3) | VAIN | [NA(gg)IN(g)]* | NAIN |
| 9d | Loosening hard limits to Ifor pleased buyers of the i (10;9) | READERSHIP | [H(ard) + I(fo)R + PLEASED]* | LEADERSHIP |
| 10d | Old criminal under control hung out (6;5) | LOLLED | [OLD]* + LED (under control) | DOLLED |
| 13d | Shots usually travelling to the right (golf), except a number going near the middle (6;3) | SHANKS | THAN A (except a) round N | THANNA |
| 17d | Add up some Lotto winnings (3;2) | TOT | hidden in LotTO Winnings | TOW |
| 19d | Polled returns some way off, but in sight (3;2) | YON | NOT (polled) reversed | TON |
| 23d | Closing before (archaic) burning gets hot (8;6) | ANEARING | SEARING (burning) + H(ot) | SHEARING |
| 24d | Stupid time to quit job (3;2) | ASS | TASK (job) minus T(ime) | ASK |
| 32d | Ornament adjusted to neck (6;5) | LOCKET | [TO NECK]* | NOCKET |
| 36d | Rains all over Highland reels (5;4) | PIRNS | [RAINS]* | AIRNS |
Normal Clues – Across |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay |
| 11 | Bad lie, off course and taking five (4) | EVIL | V (five) in [LIE]* |
| 14 | Celebrate dictator’s doom (4) | FETE | Sounds like (dictator’s) FATE (doom) |
| 15 | Upright piano taken from chapel, with it being out of order (7) | ETHICAL | [CHA(p)EL IT]* |
| 16 | It’s very complicated without rest relaxing climber (3) | IVY | I(ts) V(er)Y with REST removed (complicated seems redundant) |
| 17 | Dish that’s baked in a tin after being prepared (4) | TIAN | [A TIN]* |
| 20 | Morag’s squint in the mirror regularly reveals age when naked (4) | GLEE | reversed “age reveals” regularly = eGa sLaEvEr (when naked seems redundant) |
| 25 | What’s hardly scratching the surface and left to fade away? (3) | ARD | &lit clue – archeological word for a plough which scratches the surface: (h)ARD(l)(y) remove H & Y (surface) and L(eft) |
| 28 | Former local constable forgetting parts of message (4) | ONST | (C)ONST(able) minus CABLE (message) |
| 35 | Casual sort of delivery from crease after dropping the last man exposed to spin (6) | CAESAR | [CREAS(e) + A]* : CREASE dropping thE last + A (he = man) all anagrammed (exposed to spin) |
| 37 | Progress at sea is always chancy without directions (4) | SAIL | [IS AL(ways)]* minus WAYS (directions) |
| 38 | Cavalier receives cross of former comrade-in-arms (9) | EX-SERVICE | [RECEIVES + X]* |
| 40 | Peasant caught out leaving socially acceptable rank (7) | COTTIER | C(aught) + O(u)T (u = socially acceptable) + TIER (rank) |
| 41 | Thrills pinching last of woman’s brief underwear (6) | KNICKS | KICKS (thrills) round (woma)N |
| 42 | Mark one following nation undergoing revolution (6) | ANOINT | [NATION}* |
| 43 | Japanese decoration takes this country by surprise in the end (7) | NETSUKE | NETS (takes) + UK (this country) + (surpris)E |
| 44 | Irritates pigs, starting stomach inflammation (13) | PERIGASTRITIS | [IRRITATES PIGS]* |
Normal Clues – Down |
|||
| No. | Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 | Overcome with onset of compassion for a fault (6) | DEFECT | DEFEAT (overcome) with C(ompassion) for A |
| 8 | Athletic getting over bad luck as well as City (8) | AUCKLAND | A(thletic) + [LUCK]* + AND (as well as) |
| 16 | Old score settled in sin worried some relatives (6) | IN-LAWS | LAW (obsolete word for score) in [SIN]* |
| 21 | Synthetic protein working to fill cut beneath head (8) | COPAXONE | COP (head) + ON (working) in ACE (cut) |
| 22 | Custodian of the Argylls succeeded in decision over troops (8) | ARRESTOR | S(ucceeded) in ARRÊT (decision) + OR (Other Ranks – troops) |
| 29 | Ingrowths draw dirty looks when in conversation (7) | TYLOSES | Sounds like TIE (draw) LOW (dirty?) SEES (looks) |
| 30 | Perhaps where one gets cold with rising speed? (6) | ICECAP | I (one) + C (cold) + PACE (speed) reversed |
| 33 | Misbegotten trend drowned in verse (5) | DRENT | [TREND]* |
| 34 | Old Roman coin happens to be turned up in Italy, yes? Here, maybe (6) | ASSISI | AS (old Roman coin) + IS (happens to be) reversed + SI (in Italy, yes) |
| 39 | Tail stuck out with lots of bits missing (4) | SCUT | S(tu)C(k o)UT with bits missing |
Finest puzzle of the year to date for me. Superb gridfill and brilliant endgame. I worked out DONOR relatively early so knew which of the two to plump for. Still a lot to do after that though…
Great blog. Thanks for all the stuff I missed. Tremendous puzzle.
I wasn’t expecting any IQ to equal, let alone surpass, Nimrod’s Bernstein puzzle for a long time, but this is definitely the best IQ of the year (at least) for me. It was jolly decent of Doctor Barnard to choose a donor and recipient with the same letter patterns as his name and HEART TRANSPLANT, so that some clever crossword setter could make use of it, but even Dr B couldn’t have predicted the sheer mastery with which Ifor treated the theme. I feel that sometimes Ifor’s puzzles have too much emphasis on difficulty and not enough on enjoyment but this one, while certainly no pushover, was a pleasure to solve from beginning to end. I’ve usually forgotten all but the most basic details of a puzzle by the time the blog goes up, but I will remember this one for quite a while.
I’m hopeless at keeping count of different clue types so I didn’t notice that only one grid fill had 11 of each sort of clue, but it was a helpful alternative route in case you didn’t spot the significance of the title early enough.
Magnificent.
All of the above! This goes to the top of my list for puzzle of the year. The only clues I couldn’t eventually parse to my satisfaction were 24a and 35a so thanks for the explanations Hi. I still can’t see why a Caesar(ean) delivery should be “casual” though. And, of course, thanks to Ifor for the puzzle.
After reading the first four comments, I’m prompted to show my rating for this crossword too! I thought the design was brilliant, and I echo exactly what cruciverbophile said about exploiting the coincidences found in the enumeration of the themed names and words. Out of 22 IQ puzzles that I have tackled, then, this puzzle rates 4th in concept and design, the clues to 1a and 12a getting a special mention. It would have come 3rd on this aspect of the puzzle (concept and design, including the preamble) if the heart-shaped theme names were actually in contiguous cells and not in cells tenuously touching at the corners.
A few of the clues were beyond me, but, in the light of my previous experience of IIor, I did very well to get as many as I did. Four of the asterisked clues were only half-solved when I entered the endgame. I found all the themed names and words except TRANSPLANT (just because the half-solved clues happened to favour WASHKANSKY!). I left four ‘normal’ clues unsolved on the left of the diagram, but none of those contributed to the theme, and I was happy to leave them. I hoped the theme would at least help me to get the missing halves of the asterisked clues, but that didn’t happen.
For all other aspects of the puzzle, especially the clueing, rating is difficult because the general standard in these IQ puzzles is very high, as I have commented once or twice before, and, despite a few difficulties that I have uniquely with Ifor, I cannot rate this low. On that aspect, this rates joint 7th to 10th, I would say.
Let me say finally that it was rewarding to be reminded of the real-life drama behind the theme. I knew a bit about the doctor and the recipient anyway, but I learned more about the donor (whose name was previously unknown to me) when I looked up the subject.
Thanks to Ifor and Hihoba.
Mightily impressive, that one makes my shortlist for IQ of the year. Bravo.
Many thanks to Ifor – this was certainly a puzzle of the year contender for me too. A pleasure to solve by chipping away over the course of a few days, with multiple PDMs. The only negative for me was being uncertain which version to submit, although with hindsight that seems rather more obvious than it did at the time.
Howard L @4: That puzzled me initially too, but then I found that a ‘Caesar’ was considered an informal way of saying ‘Caesarean’ (can’t recall precisely where I saw that, probably Collins online).
Kippax @7 re Howard L @4
It’s in Chambers:
Caesar (also without capital) a Caesarean section (informal)
As per Hi’s blog, he was a little concerned as to what to write in the final grid so he contacted the rest of the regular IQ bloggers for advice. It was only at this point that I realised that I hadn’t done the puzzle full justice, which is often the case since I don’t tend to send them in. Always willing to help, I examined it further and realised that the title left us in no doubt about how to finish. Up till then, “provider of” could have referred to Dr. Barnard but the N[ame] inside DOOR eliminated any ambiguity.
Well done and thanks to Hi – I hope that you are enjoying your trip. And many thanks to Ifor for a great puzzle.
Excellent puzzle, thanks very much, Ifor.
Doh!. Thanks Kippax@7 and Kenmac@8. I was so focused on a Caesarean delivery being anything but casual that I didn’t see the other interpretation which, of course, was necessary for the proper definition. I may as well admit to not getting DONOR from the title as well, but thought that “provider” could only mean the donor of the heart so chose correctly.
I made a point earlier that I should have put as a question. Whenever it might be relevant in an Inquisitor crossword, what is a contiguous cell? Is it one that is a King’s move away, as in chess?
(I seem to remember the same question coming up in an earlier puzzle, and I’m not even sure if it was resolved.)
I’d say “satisfying” rather than “enjoyable” as I found it rather tough going at times, not managing to get started until part way through the week, and never being as my solving-best on weekday evenings; but an admirable puzzle from Ifor, so thanks as ever – very reliable to provide a stiff but worthwhile challenge.
I had trouble with the wordplay for CAESAR, not knowing where the other A came from, and I still think that going from “man” to “he” to “a^2 (dialect)” as part of the anagram fodder is stretching things a bit.
I’m another one who came to realise that the title was a cryptic clue to resolve the ambiguity only a few days after I’d finished the puzzled and had decided which version was correct – correctly as it turned out.
Hi: thanks for the blog, but we don’t really need the rubric’s “11 of each sort” for either of the two grid-fills – e.g. DOCTOR BARNARD forces us to have the intersecting OLIVE, RORY & AIT, which in turn means we have to pick LOUIS, which then leads to SHANKS, which contributes to WASHKANSKY. Hope you enjoy Trumpland.
Howard @10
A good point concerning the donor. I too got it from ‘provider’, ignoring the rest of the title, but in retrospect I now see that a crossword clue, wordplay and all, made an apt title.
Alan @11: I tend to reserve “contiguous” for things that have a common edge, though I have noticed in crosswords a looser meaning of have a common edge or vertex. So, I approach with caution …
HG @12
Surely the A in 35a is mAn exposed – i.e. with the outside letters removed.
HG @14
Thank you. Your way and my way correspond to what the dictionaries say, but your advice is sound. (It was a hard lesson to learn – I must move with the times.)
One of the nice things about reading these blogs is that you so often discover delightful little details you’d missed (or I should probably say ‘I’, rather than ‘you’, but I suspect I’m not alone – in fact, in light of the comments above, I know I’m not). I thought I’d ticked off every last detail, but, as so often seems to be the case, I’d missed the subtlety of the title, taking it at its literal face value, as Howard L describes above. John Lowe beats me to the one thing I had to contribute, the A in 35a being an exposed man. This was one of a few clues I’d found mildly frustrating at the time – I had exclamation marks against this and GLEE at 20a and must have struggled particularly with 22d as I had a cross face next to that one. These slight frustrations aside, a superb, neat and very clever puzzle, which extends a run of more than averagely difficult IQs in my opinion – or am I just struggling at the moment?
Actually, I think I may have more to contribute – in 39d, I think the word play is STUCK out (i.e. an anagram) minus the k, which can be an abbreviation for kilobyte, hence lots of bits missing.
OPatrick @18
I parsed 39d SCUT your way too.
HG. Thanks for your alternative means of getting to the pairing of the 13 and 15 letter pairs. You are right. Which prompts the question, why was the “11 of each” bit in the rubric at all? Trumpland is fine, thought we will be at the fringes of a hurricane today. Thanks for the comments. I’m always glad to find that I wasn’t the only one to find a puzzle tough. OPatrick’s parsing of 39d is probably right, though I think mine is ok too.
John Lowe @15 & OPatrick @17 (& 18): A = mAn exposed in 35a is much better – thanks. As for GLEE at 20a, the same device is used – it’s only mirrored regularly in rEvEaLs (A)G(E) when “age” is naked.
And I too parsed 39d with K meaning “kilobyte”.
George @20, regarding “11 of each” in the rubric: whilst it doesn’t help once you’ve got a complete grid, if you haven’t got one of the entries such as THANNA & SHANKS that links the top row with the cells forming the heart shape, then it could help you solve e.g. 13d, knowing that you were looking for T???NA & S???KS as opposed to S???NA & T???KS. I can’t think of another reason …
I found this quite tough, so I’m relieved that a few others did as well. The coincidences in the lengths of the various names and the operation were very well spotted by Ifor, and nicely exploited. The puzzle was an excellent amalgamation of two grids. However, I went wrong at the end. I took the definition entry for 3d to be the ‘Provider of Name’ in the title. Chambers defines ‘cite’ as ‘to name’, so a citer is a ‘provider of name’. Having seen that early on I didn’t think to approach the hint from another angle. Seems an unfortunate ambiguity, unless there’s something else that rules out the DOCTOR BARNARD grid
One of those where I made a very good start – getting to the donor business surprisingly quickly – so put it aside… and then, on returning to it, finding it very tricky indeed after all. Inattentively, I took the title as a hint rather than a clue, saw only fog, and decided to wait for the blog rather than make a decision…
Great puzzle, and thanks for the blog.
I agree this is one of the best of the year and did alight on the correct choice, motivated purely by provider in the title without noticing the rest could give donor – d’oh! Thanks to the setter.
A superb construction, certainly a POTY contender. Also being one of the hardest of the year for me too. I struggled with the cells inside the heart, eventually getting them after a lot of pen chewing. I didn’t get the cryptic title for DONOR so unfortunately my entry was sent in incorrectly. That doesn’t take anything away from a super puzzle. Thanks to Hi for a great blog which filled in quite a few gaps for me. I love Ifor puzzles. A big thanks to him/her.
A struggle indeed, but a most impressive payoff, well worth the effort. As at @24 I chose what turned out to be the correct fill on the basis of “Provider” and didn’t see DONOR until embarrassingly later. Never actually got around to checking for “11 of each sort” confirmation … All thanks to Ifor and Hi
hoba.As ever, my grateful thanks to blogger and commenters. Of course I welcomed your appreciative remarks (I can take any amount of that sort of thing!) but I particularly enjoyed reading the progressive unravelling of aspects of the construction and parsing, all of which ultimately reflected my intentions.
A friend recently noted in the context of something of mine appearing elsewhere how remarkably often historic individuals seemed to organise their activities with some future thematic puzzle in mind. Perhaps there is some grand plan out there…
Ifor
A great puzzle and probably the hardest of the year for me. I was looking for WASHKANSKY in the grid but failed to spot the heart shape. Now I see it all I am even more impressed. At least I solved and parsed all the clues which took me a whole week on its own.
Thanks to Ifor and Hi.