Inquisitor 1586: Carte Blanche by Eclogue

17 comments on “Inquisitor 1586: Carte Blanche by Eclogue”

1. The final grid was spectacular, but the complete gridfill, before most of it vanished, was impressive in a different way, as already remarked by Hihoba. To create a 6×6 square without bars from twelve interlocking 9-letter words is a huge achievement, especially with the themeword placed in the centre.

   After solving a few clues in the NW and SE corners I saw for the first time how it was possible to put answers into my working draft of the grid and insert some of the bars. Getting two more 9-letter words (I already had two) enabled me to fix the positions of all the 9-letter words, and the grid design was complete with only a third of the clues solved.

   The clues were excellent. There were (for me) just a few sticky ones, of which FOUSSA was the last to fall. I had a few letters missing from the instruction because of queries with some clues, but I managed to complete the instruction and thereby clear up the queries. I too was puzzled by ‘barkers’ (from ‘baskers’) in the clue to OUABAIN.

   I read a brief account of the story of Pandora’s box to jog my memory, as a result of which I went back to my completed grid to look for HOPE (in one sense at least). The centre was the place to look first, and there it was – perfect! The instruction was an unusual but unambiguous one, and obeying it needed only a few pen-strokes in the original grid.

   I was pleased to see the reference to Collins at the end of the preamble. (It is annoying when information such as this is omitted.)

   Congratulations to Eclogue, and thanks to Hihoba for the blog.

2. I echo everything that Alan B has said: the only thing to add (although perhaps unnecessary, I have seen it in an Inquisitor preamble before) is that an instruction to use a pencil would have been useful. I assumed, but was unable to verify, that OUBAIN was used to poison dogs.

3. The BRB gives OUABAIN as a poisonous compound obtained from the seeds and wood of apocynaceous plants and gives Apocynum as the dogsbane genus.

4. Great puzzle. Ouabain is an apocynaceous plant (Chambers). Click on apocynaceous: Dogbane.

5. Great info BF, but pardon my ignorance, what is the BRB?

6. The BRB is the Big Red Book (Chambers).

7. Sorry Hi. BRB = ‘Big Red Book’ i.e. Chambers dictionary. Strangely, I thought I’d picked that up on this forum. Maybe not, though.

8. BF @7

   I know BRB from the Guardian thread on this forum, where the regular contributors are familiar with it.

9. Much enjoyed — thanks all round. As a timorous solver easily intimidated by blank grids, I was pleased by the early realization that the first six and last six across answers could each be entered as soon as solved — a great help during the early period of bafflement. Happily I remembered non troppo from Gerard Hoffnung’s The Maestro.

   It’s a long time since I’ve seen the advice to use a pencil. Surely we’ve learned (and newcomers very quickly learn) that it’s safest always to do IQ this way! The most recent puzzle by the late great Schadenfreude required us to erase more than half the perimeter, with nothing said about pencils. How very sad to lose him. Seeing that name on a puzzle meant there was a treat in store.

10. Ah! Thanks. Not Be Right Back then!

11. A lovely puzzle, very satisfying to fill the grid (I love a carte blanche).

    An innovative endgame too, unambiguous and fair. For some reason I thought this puzzle quite ‘Listeneresque’

    Thanks to Norman for clearing up the barkers. I had a big question mark next to that one. Many thanks to Eclogue and Hihoba.

12. A thoroughly enjoyable offering. I always find a carte blanche grid to be a little daunting, but surprised myself with the ease with which I completed the grid fill. And how much I enjoyed it. Perhaps I should revise my opinions on such puzzles… A satisfying endgame to boot, what’s not to like?

13. The lengths were a great help. 6 + 6 for line 1, 5 + 7 for line 2, etc. I didn’t get all the misprints, but had enough to give me “content of Pandora’s box”.

14. When checking the filled grid for occurrences of H,O,P,E appearing in a symmetric patter, I discovered that:
    character 4 from the left in the bottom row is H,
    character 5 from the top in the leftmost column is O,
    character 4 from the right in the top row is P, and
    character 5 from the bottom in the rightmost column is … P.
    I’m glad that the last one wasn’t E.

    Thanks @3&4 for explaining OUABAIN – I thought it might be something to do with the poison coming from the bark of the tree.

    Not as difficult as many Cartes Blanches – thanks Eclogue and Hihoba.

15. I agree this was good and slightly easier than some other barless puzzles, the lengths establishing how many answers were on each row with only the starting positions of the long ones to be deduced. I hadn’t noticed but yes the full checking in the middle is indeed impressive. Many thanks.

16. I enjoyed this.  I like Carte Blanche grids and don’t usually find them much harder than the ones with bars.  Solving the clues is usually my sticking point.  I didn’t manage to figure out what to do at the end.  I tried deleting everything except the letters H, O, P and E but couldn’t see anything significant in the result.  I think I was looking for something more complex given that there was a lot of deleting to do.  Deleting everything except 4 cells seemed a lot of work for a small result.  I agree with whoever said that “use a pencil” would have been nice in the instructions!  My pen-filled grid was a total mess by the end.

    Thanks to all.

17. Thanks very much to Eclogue. My first carte blanche completion, so very happy with this one. I have always been frightened off even attempting them, but Terrier encouraged me to persevere and – as others have noted – much of this turned out to be on the relatively straightforward side.

    My first attempt at deletion involved removing all of the letters within PANDORA’S BOX but that revealed nothing and it was on reading the Wikipedia page in more detail that I realised what to look for.

    Thanks too, Hihoba.

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