Ah! Harribobs again. Always tricky, but fair. The preamble, if long, seemed pretty straightforward. 15 clues where the wordplay gave an extra letter, these extra letters to spell out some assistance to solvers. Prison escape from an eight letter prison to an eight letter refuge, both hidden in the grid and joined by a pathway given by 20 waypoints. Escapees to be written under the grid.
After breaking out from behind prison walls, escapees trace a circuitous route along the rows and columns of the grid and finally reach safety. For fellow inmates daring to follow, they helpfully leave 20 waymarks. The first waymark shows which column to head to along the current row; here, there’s a turn and the second waymark shows which row to head to along the current column, and so on. The bottom row and lefthand column provide the column and row identifiers to which the waymarks refer. Wordplay in 15 clues leads to the answer plus an extra letter, not entered. These extra letters show how to identify the derring-doers, who must be named below the grid. Solvers must also highlight the prison and the place of refuge (each eight cells running anti-clockwise around a central square), and draw a continuous line along the escape route. One answer is an abbreviation.
No point in worrying about the escape until I had the grid filled, so on with the clue solving. There were some obscure definitions of words, both answers and parts of the wordplay (e.g. setter = spy and slip = young pig = yelt) but the clues slowly yielded to extensive dictionary searches. I eventually decoded the extra letters, which spelled UNTWINE WAYMARKS.
The final grid was:
So that left two days of fruitless searching for anti-clockwise eight letter prison and refuge. I found the refuge first (LA SUISSE) (note the title – Escape to the COUNTRY) and should have been able to work backwards to the prison, but my reverse logic failed me.
I had noticed LAG at both the top right and the bottom left of the grid. The top right one was followed by IV, and I was aware that the STALAGs (German Stammlager, short for Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschaftsstammlager!) were numbered using Roman Numerals (The Great Escape was from Stalag Luft III). I tried googling the letters from the grid – i.e. COFLAG IV – with no success, so I Googled STALAG IV, thinking that I might have an error in the grid and google offered me “stalag iv escape room”, which I followed. The fourth search result referred to OFLAG IV C, the official title for Colditz Castle prison. So not COFLAG but OFLAG (German: Offizierslager), and the prison was up near the top right.
Following the instructions, and starting at the T in the middle of OFLAG IV C I followed the walk. The T indicates that you move to column T (above the T of Tumble), finding an A. The A indicates that you move to the row indicated by the A in cArving giving O; and so to the column O of signOry; then row I of carvIng etc. In 20 steps I reached LA SUISSE, passing the letters TAOINRYELYUNTEEAYVNE on the way.
The instruction “UNTWINE WAYMARKS” indicated that these letters were an anagram (but see HG’s comment at #2!!) of the two escapees (two spaces indicated below the grid). I googled and wikied the escapees from Colditz and found that (AN)TONY LUTEYN and AIREY NEAVE escaped together on January 4th 1942. The letters only allowed 20 characters, so TONY LUTEYN and AIREY NEAVE were to be written below the grid. {Airey Neave, later Northern Ireland Secretary was murdered in his car by a bomb in the House of Commons car park in March 1979.}
COR!! Another Harribobs special. I have now blogged four of his five Inquisitor puzzles and have found all of them exceptionally challenging and satisfying. One of the great Inquisitor setters.
The final route is shown below. I’ve made the steps separate, rather than using a continuous line, in the interests of clarity. The highlighting of the prison and refuge, and the colouring of the letters visited is for information only.
Across |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay (extra) | X |
| 1 | Not many joined ex-policemen backing restriction on activity (6) | CURFEW | RUC reversed (Royal Ulster Constabulary = ex-policemen) + FEW (not many) | |
| 5 | Colour of boat, heading away from island toward the west (7) | APRICOT | COT (boat) with (c)APRI (island) to its West | |
| 10 | Girl with disability (6) | AMELIA | Double definition | |
| 11 | Perhaps pox-ridden, we in Scotland love nothing but sorcery (6) | VOODOO | V(enereal) D(isease) (perhaps pox) round OO (we in Scotland) + O (love) + O (nothing) | |
| 12 | Again use tracks around Europe to get this? (7) | RECYCLE | RY (tracks) round EC (Europe) + CL(U)E (this!) | U |
| 13 | Relapsing prisoner inside providing points of interest (4) | FOCI | CO(N) in IF (provided) all reversed (relapsing) | N |
| 14 | Election counter free-to-view essentially (4) | VOTE | hidden reversed (counter) in freE-TO_View | |
| 15 | Go about, left of vessel (5) | URNAL | (T)URN (go) + A(bout) + L(eft) | T |
| 17 | Soldier and sailors whinge in various places (4) | GIRN | GI (soldier) + RN (sailors) | |
| 20 | Opposed to growing old – having to give up golf finally (4) | AGIN | AGING minus the final G (golf) | |
| 21 | Insignificant person, born by mistake in outskirts of Basle (8) | NEBBISHE | NE (born) + BISH (mistake in B(asl)E | |
| 23 | Market-places beginning to revive in Bamberg and Tuttlingen? (5) | TRONS | R(evive) in TO(W)NS | W |
| 24 | Rosaceous plant somewhat entangled with weed after husband left (11) | MEADOWSWEET | [SOMEW(h)AT WEED]* | |
| 27 | Nigerian’s home in Graz, Austria? (5) | HAUSA | HAUS = Home in German_ + A(ustria) | |
| 28 | Regularly regret appearing with lingerie having no merit (8) | UNDESERT | UND(I)ES (lingerie) + rEgReT (regularly) | I |
| 30 | River running into a German lake (4) | ERIE | R(iver) in EI(N)E (a German) | N |
| 32 | Boy coloured when cycling (4) | EDDY | Cycling the letters gives DYED (coloured) | |
| 36 | Knock back drink in church run by bishops (5) | EPISC | SIP (drink) in CE (church) all reversed. This is the abbreviation referred to in the preamble. | |
| 37 | Help to rise, or hinder? (4) | REAR | Double definition | |
| 38 | Russian leader, though without fault, makes slip here and there (4) | YELT | YELT(sin) (Russian leader without fault) | |
| 39 | Flip strain and squeeze pesto ingredient (7, 2 words) | PINE NUT | TUNE (strain) + NIP (squeeze) all reversed | |
| 40 | Spiteful person keeps shouting Perth’s result (6) | WASH-UP | WASP (spiteful person) round HU(E) (shouting) | E |
| 41 | For locals, opportune time to catch river fish (6, 2 words) | SEA EEL | SEEL (for locals, opportune time) round EA (river) | |
| 42 | Mark golden years of old Venetian government? (7) | SIGNORY | SIGN (mark) + OR (golden) + Y(ears) | |
| 43 | Corporation almost squandered turnover? (6) | TUMBLE | TUM (corporation) + BLE(w) (almost squandered) | |
Down |
||||
| No. | Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay | X |
| 1 | Shaping corner panel under vehicle reduced velocity (7) | CARVING | (W)ING (corner panel) under CAR (vehicle) + V(elocity) | W |
| 2 | Queen Victoria received shock treatment for muscles? (5) | RECTI | RI (Regina et Imperatrix – Queen Victoria’s title) round ECT (Electro Convulsive Therapy) | |
| 3 | One fleeing farm conceals weapon under chicken (5) | FLYER | FARM minus ARM (conceals weapon) + L(A)YER (chicken) | A |
| 4 | Morse was circling address, upset (6) | WALRUS | WAS round URL (address) reversed | |
| 5 | One archdeacon, at the start of spring, gives flowers (5) | AVENS | A (one) + VEN (archdeacon) + S(pring) | |
| 6 | Sailor meeting boisterous dames applies hair oil (7) | POMADES | PO (Petty Officer = sailor) + [DAMES]* | |
| 7 | Jester’s daughter shot revolver (4) | ROLL | DROLL (jester) minus D(aughter) | |
| 8 | Stupid trafficker unloading close to shore (4) | COOT | CO(Y)OTE (trafficker) minus (shor)E | Y |
| 9 | Asian money boxes containing two yen (6) | TYIYNS | TINS (boxes) round 2 x Y(en) | |
| 13 | Covering the front of Rabbie Burns’ trousers (6) | FLARES | R(obbie) in FLA(M)ES (burns) | M |
| 16 | Futile attempt to liquidate a bodega (6) | VINTRY | VAIN TRY minus A | |
| 17 | American, say, read up about Arabic sacred work (6) | GEMARA | AM(erican) E.G. (say) reversed round AR(abic) | |
| 18 | Sultan withdraws after losing section of nerve centre (5) | NIDAL | S(A)LADIN (sultan) minus S(ection) | A |
| 19 | In case forwarded message is cut short (5) | ETWEE | (R)ETWEE(t) (forwarded message) cut short | R |
| 22 | Fabulous beasts, more despicable than all others (6) | BASEST | [BEASTS]* | |
| 25 | Effusion is passé for French (7) | OUTPOUR | OUT (passé) + POUR (for in French) | |
| 26 | Shy, up and coming actress bringing up the rear (7) | STARTLE | STARLET (up and coming actress) with the T (rear) moving up | |
| 27 | Ambassador axes core group of bolshy radicals (6) | HEXYLS | HE (ambassador) + XY (axes) + boLShy | |
| 29 | Runners apprehended by detective give up (6) | DESIST | S(K)IS (runners) in DET(ective) | K |
| 31 | Cheeky setter south of the border (5) | LIPPY | LIP (border + (S)PY (setter) | S |
| 33 | Going up West Street in a reverie? (5) | DREAM | MAE (West) + RD (street) all reversed | |
| 34 | First-timer with cut nose and shiner seen in The Swan (5) | DENEB | DEB round N(os)E | |
| 35 | Scum left in sink (4) | SLAG | L(eft) in SAG (sink) | |
| 36 | Peter’s second home in ruins, abandoned by rampaging demons (4) | ECHO | Peter’s second is E = echo: [(se)C(ond) HO(m)E]* (remove [DEMONS]* from SECOND HOME and anagram); Note that the word second serves two purposes in this clever clue! See HG’s comment at #2 | |
One where the grid fill was fairly straightforward but the end game took an absolute age. I’d half thought the prison might be Colditz, but well, it wasn’t there, and it took most of the weekend to work out that it had another name. The handy Wikipedia page on escapees helped unravel the waymarks… Having said that the grid fill was easy enough, 40ac did give me a little grief. I was fairly certain of the answer from checking letters, but couldn’t find any reference to the term being dialect, and couldn’t work out who the “spiteful person” might be either, so in it went on a bit of a wing and a prayer. Overall satisfying to finish, though if your Googling skills weren’t up to scratch I suspect you wouldn’t have been able to finish.
Once I’d found the start and the finish, especially OFLAG IV-C which took ages, it took me yet another long time to get going since I didn’t expect to find the first waymark in the prison but somehow en route. But I did get there in the end, and, yes, another mightily impressive grid from Harribobs. The two escapees are not simply anagrams, but are entwined – one emerging from the odd letters along the path (so also in the bottom row), and the other from the even ones (and the left column), which makes the construction even more remarkable.
Thanks to him, and also Hihoba for the blog. (I think your wordplay for the final clue is incorrect: second is not doing double duty to clue E for Echo, since peter and echo both mean ‘to play of a high card followed by a low card’ to signal to partner in a card game such as bridge.)
Got lucky googling WW2 POW camps .My solving partner found the destination
I was kind of hoping for a flashing light display on this blog but that would be asking a lot except that I’ve seen it done before.
A great bit of history (Airey Neave esp)-that Airey Neave!) and thanks for blog hihoba.
Lovely stuff again from Harribobs. Though as with blogger and other comments, the endgame took me an absolute age. I was convinced we were on Alcatraz and wasted hours going down that particular dead end. I then focused on other famous prisons and went through a series of both grid and wiki searches before the penny dropped. Once I had Oflaf the rest followed. Thanks to Hihkba for the blog, and also for the parsing of Hexyls which stumped me. And a great spot by HolyGhost for the entwined escapees. I had them down as simply anagrams.
Another corker from Harribobs, thank you. Fans of his may want to look at Saturday’s Listener for more startling grid construction.
Thanks Hihoba for the comprehensive blog.
Wow, double wow-wow and triple wow-wow-wow! A devilishly devious puzzle, diligently dissected by the blogger…
After filling the grid I took to Excel to list out all the anti-clockwise 8-letter words – eventually saw LA SUISSE, but took an age more to see OFLAG IV-C (mainly because it isn’t really an 8-letter word…but then again, nor is LA SUISSES, and the preamble does just say ‘8 cells’, so a mis-assumption on my part there!)
I completely failed to spot that the ‘waypoints’ were simply the letters in the grid squares along the way – my researches eventually found Luteyn and Neave as two escapees with 10 letters in their names (I think Alain Le Ray was the other candidate, but these two escaped together). I then ENtwined them – alternate letters – and worked backwards from the E in the middles of La Suisse to break back into Colditz…(;+>)
Currently girding my loins for the above-mentioned Listener…
A challenging and enjoyable puzzle that I nearly gave up on, having spent too long resolving some difficulties with the ‘extra’ letters and trying to find the ‘first waymark’. With a slice of luck I eventually found the first waymark, and that led me to the escape route and all the other thematic elements.
Most of the clues were excellent. I had difficulty only with COOT – resolved with the help of a friend and her more up-to-date dictionary. What took nearly as long as filling the grid, however, was the resolution of all the queries I had that left me with 5 or 6 extra letters still to find. I managed to resolve all those queries but was held up considerably by some ambiguous clues.
Four clues were ambiguous. 30a ERIN/ERIE was quickly resolved by the crossing letter E from BASEST, but none of the other three (41a SEA EEL, 20a AGIN and 13d FLARES) could be resolved except by knowing or guessing how the other ambiguities are resolved or what the 15-letter message might say. Without commenting on whether it is fair to have such ambiguities I will just make the point that there was less enjoyment to be had from this phase of the puzzle because of them.
[SEA EEL was ambiguous because it could have been a special clue, yielding L, D or X (from the names of five different rivers), instead of a normal clue. AGIN could also have been a special clue, yielding E (from AGEING). And FLARES, a special clue, could have yielded either M (as intended) or R (from FLARES meaning ‘burns’).]
The endgame was tough for me because I couldn’t find the ‘prison’. (I also had a mistake at 35d – FLAG instead of SLAG – which made the ‘refuge’ impossible to find, but that didn’t hold me up very much.) I was obliged to resolve the theme by starting with the first waymark, and that really tested my patience!
I tried literally every cell in a 12 x 12 grid as a possible first waymark, and fortunately I latched on to a longish letter sequence, using the x and y ‘co-ordinates’, that went into a loop at the end, and by ‘untwining’ the two sets of letters in that sequence I found myself on what was certainly the right track. The escapers’ names led me to the name of the prison, and the refuge was then easy to find.
I admired the complexity and cleverness of the thematic design. The economy of the instruction to ‘untwine’, the presence of unique letters on each ‘axis’ (the left column and bottom row) and the symmetrical placement (within a 12 x 12 grid) of the refuge opposite the prison were very neat. And I enjoyed the crossword-solving element of this puzzle as much as the unravelling of the theme.
Thanks to Hihoba for an excellent blog and for the parsing of VOODOO, thanks to HG for the explanation of ‘Peter’ and ECHO, and congratulations to Harribobs for what was, ultimately, a rewarding thematic puzzle.
(In 34d DENEB I do not see how NE can be ‘cut nose’. I thought the answer must be DE[B] = ‘first-timer with cut’ plus NEB = ‘nose’).
mc_rapper67 @5
I’m amazed that you managed to take the names of the two would-be escapers, entwine (!) their names and work backwards along the escape route to the prison. I thought my way into the theme was wacky enough (finding by elimination the only possible first waymark). But the most efficient way into it – finding the prison – simply wasn’t available to me!
Gridfill easy. Endgame way beyond me, and having read the explanation, I don’t feel any worse for it I’m afraid
I must have been a bit befuddled last week as I certainly didn’t find the grid fill easy – I managed most of the left half reasonably quickly but then had to chip away at the right half in short bursts over the week. I did finally get there – spurred on by previous experience of Harribobs – but then had the challenge of the end game still to get through. Having tried every potential cell and failed to spot either prison or refuge I started to try following random letters/waymarks and noticed that several ended up at the same E and eventually read the La Suisse that I’d been looking at for so long. Switzerland suggested German POW camps and Wikipedia eventually gave me the rest. I’m disappointed I didn’t spot the entwined names and resorted to hammering out the anagram instead – I know better than to ignore an unusual word like that lurking in the preamble.
I found the solving process quite frustrating, but perhaps that made the satisfaction of completing another fantastic puzzle fro Harribobs all the greater.
Like some of the other commenters I completed the grid fairly easily. But being expected to pick out foreign proper nouns, with endings like -GIVC, from a list of 11 x 11 x 8 = 968, was a wee bit much for me I’m afraid.
Just because it’s silly, I’d like to explain how I figured out the endgame by getting an erroneous assumption wrong enough to be accidentally right! Since the preamble talked about the prison and refuge surrounding central cells, when I was stuck with ~80% of the gridfill and desperate for leads I started wondering about what might be in said cells. The prison’s central cell would be the first marker and the refuge’s the end of the journey, so it occurred to me that it would be awfully neat if it was a marker that sent you to the same place, thus terminating the route. As marker 20 moved you along a column, this “terminator” would be the reference for that column, suggesting that you’d move along the row zero cells! I didn’t know if this would actually be the case, but I figured it was worth having a look for – (un)fortunately, at the time, I’d got my rows and columns mixed up, just like I nearly did while writing this! I went looking for cells that contained their row reference instead, and by some hilarious coincidence the E inside LA SUISSE is one such cell. My idea would have actually required it to hold an N, and it was only when I was plotting out the route proper that my mistake finally dawned on me. By that time, though, LA SUISSE had got me thinking WWII, and thus a search lead me to Wikipedia’s “List of mass escapes from German POW camps”, where I learnt Colditz’s designation.
Beyond that, I can only really echo above praises of the overall quality (or should I “peter” them?), both in terms of clues and construction, though I do agree that a teeny bit more assistance to kick-start the endgame would not have gone amiss. Still, I definitely enjoyed it, even if I did lean on a little serendipity!
I had a problem with ERIE as I had ERNE the lake in Northern Ireland so had an I as the extra letter not N. Took a while to resolve that.
Admirably tough clues made this a challenging solve. But it’s one of my least favourite endgames. Fun finding the names but scribbling over the puzzle to mark the escape route felt very wrong indeed. Sorry to be the only dissenter here, Harribobs – can’t please ’em all.
We are still out of the country and didn’t get around to tackling this until recently. We were short of time and limited internet access so unfortunately we needed a nudge from elsewhere after having filled the grid and spending what time we did have searching for possible prisons.
We had no idea that Colditz was known by another name or that it involved roman numerals. In looking for possible combinations we were anticipating complete words and missed the foreign spelling of the country despite looking for one.
The setter was Harribobs, so we knew the endgame would be worth the effort but reading HolyGhost@2, we are now even more impressed.
Thanks to Harribobs for a splendid endgame and Hihoba for the blog.
I enjoyed filling the grid but I didn’t manage to get even a toehold on the endgame. I had entwine waymarks rather than untwine waymarks, but I can’t see this would have made any difference. One of those puzzles where the grid-fill is an almost irrelevant scene-setter for a different sort of puzzle altogether. Very impressive I can see but not my cup of tea. Sorry about that.
Thanks to Harribobs and Hihoba.
Yet another intractable endgame in IQ. Becoming too frequent for me I’m afraid – what happened to just solving the clues and filling the grid with a gentle denouement?
I’m losing interest. Sorry!
KJB, aka Kruger, aka Tom R, aka Chesley, aka Darter, aka Whisky Mac, aka Lesarby, aka Graeme, aka wooby
Please desist from using multiple identities on this site. You may use two, your pseudonym as a setter, Kruger, and one other, as yourself.
This is first IQ in an age that I have failed to finish. Grid fill was seriously hard but I managed it together with UNTWINE WAYMARKS. I just couldn’t find the prison and the country. I did attempt following the route by starting at one of the “Y”s and this worked going forward but I’d no idea where to finish and there was no way of going backwards. Shame but good to read the blog and how it was solved.
I managed to complete 80% of the gride, but didn’t find the prison or the refuge, and couldn’t make head nor tail of how the waymarks worked. I just didn’t understand how there bottom row and left hand column came into it. Thanks very much to the blogger for making this clear!
Gaufrid – What on earth are you talking about? Are opinions not welcomed even though they may not agree with yours? I don’t recognise some of the names that you put forward.
I take your comments as an insult and will not contribute to this site again.
Kruger @21
I am sorry that you have chosen to react as you have done. I do not step in without good reason and ample proof.
Your email address has been associated with all of the pseudonyms that I gave above. In many cases comments have been posted from the same IP address, most recently KGB/Kruger/Tom R and previously Kruger/Darter, Kruger/Chesley and Kruger/wooby. If I go back to 2015, Kruger, Darter, Chesley and wooby all posted using the same email address and IP address. So, unless someone has hijacked your pc, you have been using multiple identities for many years, which is contrary to the Site Policy.
I am also concerned that you use these pseudonyms to add comments to blogs of puzzles that you have set. For example, at least one of these blogs has comments posted by both Chesley and wooby. This is not on!
I’m not sure Gaufrid and Kruger, that this spat should be being carried out on this blog which concerns a particular puzzle. Surely private emails would be more discrete!
Guafrid has my support, he does a fabulous job in difficult circumstances. Without a committed moderator we would have no site and no blogs at all.
Team Guafrid all the way. Kruger will probably come back at some point and start commenting on puzzles again…Maybe even those by other setters…but under which name this time? IQ1566? Give yourself a pat on the back!
Kruger should be disqualified from the end of year IQ competition. It would be unfair for setters to vote for their own puzzles under different names.
A big “EH?” – or should that be WTF from me.
I’ve read all of the explanations and I don’t understand any of it. I’m glad it wasn’t my week to blog!
Arriving late to this as I was determined to complete the endgame for myself so avoided the printed solution and this blog. Knowing Harribobs’ previous puzzles, I was expecting something special. As ever, the construction and imagination are hugely impressive but the knowledge required to spot OFLAGIVC in the grid was a step too far for me. I did get there in the end, thanks to a pointer from the Ed (thanks Nimrod!) but without that I would never have managed it so for that reason this isn’t quite up there with some of Harribob’s other Inquisitors. (I’d also got TYIYNS wrong, entering TRIENS, which messed up my waymarks but fortunately this came very near the end of the sequence and didn’t prevent me from finding the correct names).
Thanks to Hihoba for the detailed blog.