Serpent is one of a bunch of Inquisitor setters that I like more often than not.
Preamble: The wordplay in 32 clues generates an extra letter. Taken in clue order, these letters advise solvers how to fill and complete the grid.
Solve the puzzle to understand the preamble, understand the preamble to … In these circumstances, my approach is to assume things are normal (even though some aren’t) until shown otherwise. Quite soon I noticed that a few of the answers were one letter too long for their entry; symmetrically disposed. Progress was rather slow, and I wasn’t much in the mood at the weekend. I had big gaps in the upper middle and lower right, and I found quite a few of the clues fairly tough – and with some of them I couldn’t quite figure out the wordplay for some time.
The extra letters from the across clues read … PENCIL and those from the down clues read … WRITE … and I could see that by compressing PEONY, ANCON and OIL PAPER, some matters could be resolved. Presumably the others could be resolved in the same way.
I plodded on, sorting out CYCLOPES, SYNCS and PERIL, and with a few gaps the instruction became WRITE IN PENCIL FIRST, THEN WRITE IN PEN: and so we get PONY, AEON and ON PAPER upper left, and lower right we have CYCLOPS, SYES and PERN (along with SNIP and NEUM for good measure).
Even so, I had quite a bit of work to do and it was only on Wednesday morning over a cup of coffee that I finally cracked 13a UNITED, 17a OPERATE, 20a TOTEMIC, 6d STUPOR, and 7d HERETIC. And writing the blog forced me to dwell on some of the wordplay I’d half overlooked – I think it’s all OK but feel free to offer suggestions if you want.
Thanks Serpent – the reward/effort ratio was a bit on the low side for me with this one. Ah well …
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue | Answer | x | Wordplay |
| 1 | Attack party (6) | ASSAIL | W | WASSAIL (party) |
| 8 | Place concealing quart of alcoholic drink (4) | LIEU | R | LIQUEUR ¬ QU(art) |
| 13 | One’s bound to pursue one out of time (6) | UNITED | I | TIED (bound) after UNIT (one) ¬ T(ime) |
| 14 | One’s typically inflated opinion interrupts abridged radio broadcast (6) | AIR-BED | T | BET (opinion) in [RADI(o)]* |
| 15 | Betray some revolutionary Huguenot earls (5, 2 words) | RAT ON | E | (Hugue)NOT EAR(ls) rev. |
| 16 | Flower may finally open in an unusual way (5) | PEONY | [(ma)Y OPEN]* | |
| 17 | Leading lady hampered by drug use (7) | OPERATE | I | ER (leading lady) in OPIATE (drug) |
| 18 | Console clergyman burying his head in his breast (5) | ANCON | CANON (clergyman) with C moved to middle | |
| 20 | First to comment on fashion item riddled with figurative significance (7) | TOTEMIC | N | C(omment) afte TON (fashion) [ITEM]* |
| 22 | Photographer aboard ship waterproofed print medium (8, 2 words) | OIL-PAPER | PAP (photographer) in OILER (ship) | |
| 26 | Monsters, Inc. leads to other productions in series (8) | CYCLOPES | O(ther) P(roductions) in CYCLES (series) | |
| 27 | Carriage for one Oxford blue outside college (7) | UNICORN | P | UNI (Oxford) PORN (blue) around C(ollege) |
| 29 | Founders broadcast updates to latest version (5) | SYNCS | homophone: SINKS (founders) | |
| 30 | Rain tree developed support for runner (7) | TRAINER | E | [RAIN TREE]* |
| 32 | To begin with, life insurance agent rejected risk (5) | PERIL | L(ife) I(nsurance) REP (agent) all< | |
| 34 | Letter writer’s subdued tone (5) | TAUPE | N | TAU (letter) PEN (writer) |
| 35 | One’s calling satisfied hitman in Chicago? (6) | MÉTIER | C | MET (satisfied) ICER (hitman in Chicago?) |
| 36 | Communicate the work of creative group of South Africans? (6) | IMPART | I | IMPI (group of South Africans) ART (creative work) |
| 37 | Authentic forgery of gallery’s contents (4) | REAL | L | [(g)ALLER(y)]* |
| 38 | Arrangement of flowers in border round church (6) | RACEME | F | FRAME (border) around CE (church) |
| Down | No. | Clue | Answer | x | Wordplay |
| 2 | Attack gunman displaying no resistance (5) | SNIPE | SNIPER (gunman) ¬ R(esistance) | |
| 3 | Dialect’s rasping sounds thus recalled signs of beast’s advance (7) | SCROOPS | I | SIC (thus) SPOOR< (signs of beast’s advance) |
| 4 | It’s visible at home for first half of famous novel (5, 2 words) | IN EYE | R | JANE EYRE (famous novel) with IN (at home) replacing JANE |
| 5 | Top hats (3) | LID | S | LIDS (hats) |
| 6 | Play about worker’s representatives in brief state of confusion (6) | STUPOR | T | SPORT (play) around TU (trade union) |
| 7 | Epic in which Oscar turns into offensive rebel (7) | HERETIC | T | HEROIC (epic) with O(scar) replaced by TET (offensive) {ref: Vietnam War, Jan-68} |
| 9 | Dreadful oath one suppresses a little bit (4) | IOTA | H | [OATH] after I (one) |
| 10 | Form coterie intended to be stimulating (6) | EROTIC | E | [COTERIE]* |
| 11 | Wasted money supporting someone with a habit (11) | UNNECESSARY | N | NECESSARY (money) after NUN (someone with a habit) |
| 12 | Amateur boat crew cut out fat (11, 2 words) | CACAO BUTTER | W | [A(mateur) BOAT CREW CUT]* |
| 19 | DEA officer arrived in North Carolina (4) | NARC | R | ARR(ived) in NC (North Carolina) |
| 21 | What’s caught in creel isn’t fish (4) | EELS | I | (cr)EEL IS(n’t) |
| 23 | Contact complied with language unit we hear (7) | PHONEME | T | PHONE (contact) MET (complied with) |
| 24 | Go for a spin as immature jumper cleared end of fence (7) | JOYRIDE | E | JOEY (immature jumper) RID (cleared) (fenc)E |
| 25 | Say Schwarzenegger turned in anger (6) | ENRAGE | I | EG (say) ARNIE (Schwarzenegger) all< |
| 26 | Scary film’s introduction leaving party drained (6) | CREEPY | N | (s)CREEN (film) P(art)Y |
| 28 | Staged piece of music in time (5) | OPERA | P | POP(ular) (in) ERA (time) |
| 31 | Feelings preceding attack on Unionist entering neighbourhood (4) | AURA | E | U(nionist) in AREA (neighbourhood) |
| 33 | Running 8 miles shows some guts (5) | ILEUM | [LIEU]* (answer to 8a) M(iles) | |
| 35 | Spoil fellow, providing lodgings for term in Winchester (3) | MAR | N | MAN (fellow) around (Wincheste)R |
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In contrast to HG, I found this highly rewarding. The endgame didn’t have the wow factor of some of the best puzzles, but I thought the level of difficulty was spot on, with every clue being gettable without having to hunt through a dictionary for various obscurities. For some reason, looking at how obvious so many clues now seem, I made a slow start but gradually gained momentum and tied up most of the loose ends relatively quickly. I’d assumed UNICORN at 27a but was confused when I looked it up to see that it wasn’t a carriage for one. I eventually satisfied myself that the ‘for one’ in the clue was referring to Oxford being one example of a university. It’s testament to the quality of the cluing that this had been my only lingering uncertainty.
Thanks to Serpent and HG.
Well, it took me far too long to first:
1) Work out that the clues other than the 32 were too long for their allocated spaces;
2) And secondly that the instruction might actually be referring to what we should do with them, having at first just randomly modified them.
Oh well, I never claimed to be the sharpest of solvers, and I’m often not at my best Saturday. 😉
A huge sigh of relief when I did spot what was going on, and a – that’s quite neat, and tied up nicely actually. Enjoyed, but I came very close to making a real mess of this!
I usually struggle with the Inky but I felt more on terra ferma with Serpent and eventually(with a nudge from a fellow-solver) got out my pen(I normally start these in pencil.
Many thanks to Serpent and HG
I enjoyed this, and found the clues approachable but not easy! I thought the denouement was very neat, and finding pencil/pen twice in the grid was pretty impressive, Serpent.
I failed to parse OPERATE as I would never have thought of ER as “leading lady”, so thanks for the help there, HG.
This made me smile when I saw what was going on. A nice joke, presumably sparked by recent debate here.
My only issue was that there was still rather a lot of work to do after I saw the joke. Quite a number I struggled to parse.
Many thanks to Serpent and HG.
And I’ve only just noticed that I only wrote in one PENCIL and one PEN. Gah…
It was nice to come back to an Inquisitor puzzle as good as this after a longish break. At the start, I liked the phrase in the preamble telling us how many clues were subject to special treatment. (It became fashionable recently for preambles to say ‘some’ or ‘most’ rather than give us concrete information, as if some harm would be done by doing so.) Not for the first time, I could make the same comments as OPatrick (@1) about the overall experience and the quality of the clues.
It was clear at the start that some entries were not long enough for the solutions, and it became clear later that some answers clashed where they crossed. As the grid was nearing completion it was satisfying to see the symmetrically placed PENCILs forming themselves from the pairs of consecutive or clashing letters.
Completing the precise text of the ‘advice’ was tricky, as I didn’t identify 35d MAR as one of the special clues. I needed the extra letter ‘N’, but I already had an extra letter ‘I’ from the previous clue, 33d ILEUM. Eventually I realised that editions of Chambers later than mine have the abbreviation ‘m’ as well as ‘mi’ for ‘miles’, meaning that 33d could be a normal clue and MAR could yield an extra ‘N’ in a way that took me rather a long time to see.
The result of following the correct advice was both surprising and rewarding. I had to look up three of the eight new words to check that they were real.
Many thanks to Serpent for an enjoyable puzzle and to HolyGhost for an interesting and clear blog.
I entered my answers to (most of) the 32 clues in ink. Maybe I was doomed from the start.
I found the clues hard and it took me most of the week to get the grid filled. I made a mistake with the parsing of CYCLOPES mistaking it for an extra letter clue and ended up with two Ps for my PENCIL and not having enough letters to transform the pencil to a pen successfully. Great idea for a puzzle I thought.
I couldn’t work out the wordplay for MAR no matter how hard I tried. Thank you HG for enlightening me and thank you to Serpent for a good, if hard work, puzzle.
The clues were hard enough to get me swearing, but when I look back there was nothing unfair and any difficulties were down do my inadequacies as a solver. I still don’t really get “Monsters Inc” – yes I know it’s a cartoon or something but I’m not quite sure what the Inc is doing there.
Nice neat endgame that didn’t involve extensive internet research or grid staring. For me that’s the major selling point so I give this a big thumbs up. Nice one Serpent, you seem to be the Ben Stokes of crosswords at the moment!
cruciverbophile – re Monsters, Inc. – this one made me smile. I liked the misdirection of the appearance of the film name, when in fact ‘Monsters’ is the definition and the Inc. is (I assume) an abbreviation for ‘including’, with OP being included in CYCLES.
O Patrick – thanks, I thought it must be something like that, though leads to other productions in series gives OP in CYCLES on its own, which is what threw me. I can see that the addition of “including” emphasises the containment instruction, but it’s a moot point whether the abbreviation “inc.” means “including” in quite the same sense. I’ve only ever seen the abbreviation in things like “inc. VAT” – which suggests the OP would be included inside a word for monsters, rather than implying “necessitates the inclusion of”.
It’s a petty quibble anyway, if it’s even a quibble at all, and certainly didn’t spoil my enjoyment of this excellent puzzle.
Many thanks to HolyGhost for the excellent blog and to everyone who has taken the time to comment.
A really enjoyable crossword. The crux for me lay in entering two letters to resolve the clashes for SNI/PE/ONY and PER/IL/EUM. The strange title had me wondering and, like Alan B @ 7, I thoroughly enjoyed it’s resolution seeing PE NC IL written twice in the all but completed grid. How superbly creative.