Invisible Ink by Phi
Preamble:
Spoiler: highlight the whitespace before the compiler’s name (above) to see the puzzle’s title.
Well! What’s that all about? I’ve often wondered if we could ever have an Inquisitor without a preamble but without a title as well, what are we meant to do? Same as ever, I suppose – just jump in and start solving.
First to fall was 8d – a pretty obvious anagram. It was at this stage that I spotted that there was an empty space where 21a should be and, luckily, all 3 letters of 21a were fully checked. 16d was next to fall and this gave me the middle letter _N_ of 21a. Looks like it might be AND but it’ll have to wait for a while.
Two key answers were 6d and 21d and it took me ages before I solved 6d, giving _NK and then the penny dropped – the missing title is INVISIBLE INK.
Before the above happened, I’d worked out that there was a missing I in the clue to 24a – SWAM should be SWAMI but I didn’t understand the significance at that stage.
Also missing were N in 4d and K in 14d. So another invisible ink in the clues.
With most of the grid filled, I was still missing all the full answers around the perimeter and they proved to be the trickiest until the second penny dropped – the full answer to all eight clues contained the letters INK which wasn’t to be entered and even gave us real words. Now it was relatively easy to finish. And it turns out that all answers are real words.
Sticking with that thought, I then realised that erasing 21a would leave real words in 21d, 16d and 6d.
So there we have it – the title and preamble were written in INVISIBLE INK and the ink was invisible in eight clues as well as the letters I, N, K being invisible in three clues.
I couldn’t help noticing – and I’m sure it’s entirely accidental – that adding the unchecked square to 31a gives us HIKEN. Nat Hiken was the producer of The Phil Silvers Show – the subject of Inquisitor 1619.
I loved this puzzle. It was great fun and one of the best PDMs, for me, for a long time. Many thanks to Phi.
| Across |
||
| Clue |
Entry |
Wordplay |
| 1 Gazelle: facial feature recalled spirit (5) | CHINKARA | CHIN (facial feature)+ARAK (spirit; rev: recalled) |
| 5 Thinkers perplexed about a difficult patient (6) | HEARTSINK | THINKERS (anag: perplexed) around A |
| 10 Hesitates to decapitate kids (6) | HAVERS | [s]HAVERS (kids; decapitated) |
| 11 Defiant, ousting Bishop in Caledonian clash (4) | REEL | RE[b]EL (defiant) minus Bishop |
| 12 Ships heading off for fish (4) | EELS | [k]EELS (ships; without heading) |
| 13 South Island invaded by American force and Italian force (6) | SBIRRI | South+BIRR (force (American))+Island |
| 15 Hard work accepting new point (4) | FANG | FAG (hard work) around New |
| 17 Driver with a lot of friends engaged in road race, initially (7) | RALLIER | R[oad] R[ace] (initially) around ALLIE[s] (friends: most of) |
| 19 Period in Jewish calendar some respected (but only some) (4) | OMER | [s]OME R[espected] (hidden: only some) |
| 20 Liberal falling from fashion has difficulty in sight (4) | STYE | STY[l]E (fashion) minus Liberal I’m not 100% sure that the definition is correct – styes don’t usually cause difficulty in seeing, do they? |
| INK | (the clue is invisible) | |
| 22 Out of sorts, without question, but not feeling the pinch (4) | EASY | [qu]EASY (out of sorts) minus QUestion |
| 23 Keen staff carrying on after 50% sacked (4) | MOAN | MAN (staff) around O[n] (50% missing) |
| 24 Look: with clout, senses finally sort of swami (7) | STARETS | STARE (look)+[clou]T [sense]S (finally) |
| 26 Slave showing inexperience returned without horse (4) | SERF | FRES[h] (inexperienced) minus Horse (rev: returned) |
| 29 Rarely shaking Scottish mood about theatre (6) | TREPID | TID (mood in Scotland) around REPertory theatre |
| 30 Heretic to erase note in Verdi item? (4) | ARIA | ARIA[n] (heretic) minus Note |
| 31 Price rise? Hurry to secure a thousand (4) | HIKE | HIE (hurry) around K (thousand) |
| 32 Grant half cut? That’s vicious (6) | LETHAL | LET (grant)+HAL[f] (cut) |
| 33 Fools backing leaders? They’re in bad odour (6, in OED) | STINKINGS | NITS (fools; rev: backing)+KINGS (leaders) I don’t have OED but I do have ODE (and I don’t know if they are the same thing) – I don’t see STINKING as a noun so Idon’t see how this one works. |
| 34 British investing in wrong US funds, not certain regarding floating (5) | SINKABLE | SIN (wrong)+KALE (money: funds) around British |
| Down |
||
| 1 Bridge team blocking opening, getting the bird (4) | CHEWINK | CHINK (opening) around East-West (bridge team) |
| 2 Development of the aromatic test for claret? (11) | HAEMATOCRIT | THE AROMATIC (anag: development of) |
| 3 Energy beam picked up in later deal (6) | RESALE | Energy+LASER (beam) rev: picked up |
| 4 River to flow beneath historic Argon (4) | ARUN | Argon (previously the chemical symbol – now AR)+RUN (flow) |
| 6 Board member meeting lawyers in week’s second half (6) | EMBARK | Member+BAR (lawyers) inside [we]EK (second half) |
| 7 Relief about river becoming dry (4) | ARID | AID (relief) around River |
| 8 Unexpectedly litter’s rare on the ground (11) | TERRESTRIAL | LITTER‘S RARE (anag: unexpectedly) |
| 9 Southern Region incorporating connection that is increasingly tight (5) | SLINKIER | Southern+LINK (connection)+IE (that is)+Region |
| 14 Hoary state involves one displaying more than one chink (5) | RIMAE | RIME (hoary state) around A (one) |
| 16 Sees about new facilities (5) | GENTS | GETS (sees) around New |
| 18 Repeated component of molecule occupied by – for instance revolutionary enzyme (5) | LYASE | SAY (for instance; rev: revolutionary) inside LE (which is repeated in moLEcuLE) |
| 21 Abandoning one with evidence of arm injury (6) | ISLING | I (one)+SLING (which one might wear when nursing an injured arm) |
| 22 Mistakes are picked up about snitch (6) | ERRATA | ARE (rev: picked up) around RAT (snitch) |
| 23 Satisfied that fellow’s captured natural killer, I believe (5) | METHINKS | MET (satisfied)+HIS (that fellow’s) around NK (natural killer) |
| 25 Work with nurse readily accessible (4) | OPEN | OP (work)+EN (nurse) |
| 27 Turned up to visit, embracing married relatives as before (4) | EMES | SEE (to visit; rev: turned up) around Married |
| 28 Mother and family controlling King of West African people (4) | MALINKE | MA (mother)+LINE (family) aound King |
to Phi and
neil at #1. Love it.
Kenmac, to answer your question, the OED does give STINKING as a noun: “the action of the verb stink, an instance of this…”
I enjoyed this puzzle as well. The two long anagrams at 2 and 8 down were helpful in getting a foothold.
Yes, great puzzle, surely a contender for the best of list for the year. Lovely PDM…
After many weeks of not even starting the IQ, I decided to give this a go. I guessed there was a connection with the missing preamble and the blank 21A when I worked out that this ended in K, it made sense that it would be INK (albeit an invisible ink) which Phi used to write the preamble. I struggled with the rest of the gridfill – I guessed some of the remaining answers might contain “INK” which wouldn’t be entered into the grid, which would have been fair…but it was the missing i,n and k in the 3 clues that made it too hard for me – a bit of an unfair move from Phi in my opinion. However, thanks to Phi for getting me back into the IQ and Kenmac for the blog.
Hugely enjoyed this one — very neat indeed. Thanks to Phi and kenmac. I guessed INVISIBLE INK at an early stage but wondered after finishing whether — considering what clearly needed to be done to the visible letters INK in the middle — Phi had DISAPPEARING INK in mind.
An experiment to find whether applying heat would cause the title and preamble to appear in pale though legible print was unsuccessful. But it’s a good way to set fire to your newspaper.
The blank title and preamble came as a big surprise, and I had to convince myself first that I was not looking at the result of a production error. I tried the clues anyway and solved half of them without hitting any problems – mostly away from the edges for a reason that became clear later. My first two were the same as yours, kenmac (8d and 16d).
SLINKIER was my entry to the theme, and INK quickly followed. The remaining perimeter words followed that, CHEWINK and CHINKARA being the hardest to get.
My grid must have been about two-thirds complete when I worked out that three clues had a missing letter at the end. In fact I got the ‘i’ and the ‘n’ before I noticed that the gap in each of these clues between the last word and the enumeration was too large. A neat touch to cap the theme.
Thanks to Phi for an original and entertaining puzzle full of good clues, and to kenmac for the blog.
I needed my thing cap on for this one.
We only got around to solving this last week when Bert returned home. We had 3 IQs in total to solve last Saturday and the first one was Stone the Crows which we struggled with.
We heard that John’s tweet revealed that there was not a production error so were not too bothered at the start. Things fell into place when we solved 23d.
Thankfully, this was not as tricky as the week before and actually we preferred it, especially for the PDM.
Thanks to Phi, kenmac and also Neil Hunter whose comment was spot on!
Ken: when you say “and the ink was invisible in eight clues” you mean the 8 perimeter answers. And regarding 20a STYE – I have one at present, and yes it does.
METHS got me started … but it was very late on when I noticed the (almost too subtle) extra space between “chin” & “(5)” where k had been rendered invisible in the clue for 14d, as noted by Alan B @7, thus helping to resolve A=Argon(n) etc.
All in all, I wasn’t as bowled over by this as some of the others that have commented. (Admittedly, I am quite hard to please.) Anyway, thanks all round.
H___G____ @10
You say METHS got you started – do you need to seek counselling?
Thanks to kenmac and Phi
Marvellous, great fun from start to finish.
Is it a coincidence that no clue begins with I,N, or K?
Did kenmac deliberately choose the colour p for the definitions?
In 14d I th “more than one” is part of the definition.
Am I dr ing too much?
Thought the invisible ink idea was great fun, and enjoyed filling in the grid, but the disappearance of I N and K from one clue each implied to me that since we had to ADD I, N, and K to the clues, we should also ADD those letters to the grid – in 21ac. Which was wrong, I now realise.
Thanks to Kenmac for the blog and to Phi for a really entertaining puzzle … until I got to 21ac and started thinking …
This caught me unawares – doesn’t time fly? There’s a blog about it at:
http://phionline.net.nz/setters-blogs/inquisitor-1622/
Thanks, Phi, for your interesting blog on setting the puzzle.
Skylark @13
There are different ways, I’m sure, of interpreting the invisible instructions on what to do with 21a. I carefully shaded those cells very lightly, and the word appears in white where I have not shaded.
Phi @14
Thanks for the l to your blog (I know you customarily give that to us). I’m always interested to read the setter’s thing behind a puzzle.
kenmac – I am catching up on a backlog of IQs and my enjoyment in solving this puzzle was killed stone-dead by reading the spoiler Invisible Ink in big bold letters in the title on the fifteensquared home page.
Would you remove the spoiler in case someone else also wants to solve the puzzle later than usual?
Congratulations Phi on your 150th Inquisitor!
Late to the party this week. A cracking puzzle. What a greative idea to have the an invisible title and no preamble. Just let everything emerge. On his website PHI says he tried to even have his name omitted but that John H was having none of it. A neat and quick response to PeeDee @17 by Kenmac.