29 comments on “Inquisitor 1627: Tourist Information by Harribobs”

1. Another good from the Harribobs which wasn’t as scary as it first appeared. A spreadsheet most definitely came in useful for the cycling bits, where thankfully the cut and paste also copied any cell colouring. 🙂 Knowing nothing about the sport the biggest challenge for me was working out what was meant by last year’s colours. My first thought was team colours, which I’m still not sure is a thing, but thankfully the already shaded yellow block was a handy hint I cottoned onto in the end.

2. Kenmac, thanks very much for the blog, which probably took you as long to compile as it did to solve the puzzle!  However, I don’t understand what has happened to the yellow squares from the first grid: they don’t appear in the second grid.  Your third grid clearly shows an arrangement of three racing jerseys in appropriate colours: presumably the orange (looked pink to me, and brown on this screen) squares represent the necks of the riders.

   I ended up with a grid with all the letters in the right places but got hopelessly confused about the colouring.  It seemed a bit like a 2D Rubik’s Cube!  I simply don’t have the Excel skills to manipulate the rows and columns in the way required.  Getting the final grid (even without the colours correct) took me absolutely hours.  It’s an extraordinary achievement, but it seemed to me to demand more IT than crossword solving skills.

   So far as the theme is concerned, a clever exploitation of “cycling” using both its sporting and crossword connotations.  Contador was my way in: the Wikipedia entry for him makes it clear he is one of only seven cyclists (naming them) to have won all three trophies and that proved very helpful.

3. Sorry, got my grids confused: for second read third, and for third read fourth.

4. Aha, so there were two differently-coloured squares (I had pink) in the red and yellow jerseys. I thought I’d messed up somehow but couldn’t be bothered to go back and find out where. At the risk of drawing fire, I’d suggest that this was an unnecessary element of doubt in an otherwise unambiguous puzzle. Wouldn’t it have been better to keep the jerseys all one colour?

   I found this rather too fiddly to enjoy all that much, but the construction is jaw-droppingly impressive. One to admire rather than love, rather like (for me) Bach’s Goldberg Variations!

5. The crossword-solving phase was refreshingly different, and I soon got used to the idea of cycling nearly every answer before entry. (From memory, my first four answers were the same as yours, kenmac.) I found the name ANQUETIL first, followed by CONTADOR, NIBALI and MERCKX. I guessed at that stage that I was looking for Tour de France winners. (I didn’t think ‘Grand Tour’ until much later.)

   While still stuck on TOWN and REEN I tried to work out which rows to cycle to effect the first transformation. Continuing with my ‘theme’ of Tour winners, I looked for and found two, GIMONDI and HINAULT, that could fill a column exactly by cycling the rows. Seeing VUELTA forming in the last column was encouraging, mostly because it had the obvious potential of narrowing the theme down to a smaller group of multiple winners.

   Fortunately, the G and T on the two left corners hinted at the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, which would complement the Vuelta a Espana very nicely around the perimeter. Cycling columns 2 to 11 in order to accomplish that revealed Froome, the seventh and last triple winner. The other two 2018 winners, Thomas and Yates, also duly revealed themselves by the names on their shirts.

   I have great admiration for the whole concept and design of this puzzle and cannot imagine how I would succeed in creating one like it. I particularly liked the ‘staged’ introduction of the thematic material across the three grids. And the clues were excellent.

   Congratulations to Harribobs, and many thanks to kenmac for the blog.

6. An astounding work of construction – how does Harribobs keep doing it? Thinking through the various changes and cycles (like Bridgesong @2, a Rubik’s cube came to mind) made my head hurt. If there is a better puzzle this year, it will be very special indeed. Wonderful.

   My only tiny gripe concerns the timing of publication: being required to use “last year’s” colours made me pause until I realised that it referred to 2018.

7. Wow! I found QUANTILE and then CONTADOR before I realised that the former is an anagram of ANQUETIL. The whole thing was like one (or more) of the mountain stages of these tours – so pleasing once you’re done. (And not always unenjoyable en route.)

   As with bridgesong @2, I assumed that the flesh-coloured cells were the necks of the riders, and they made it clear that FROOME (in pink) was in the foreground with S YATES (in red) at the back.

   Ken – thanks for the blog. One small matter: AT THAT should be cycled to HATATT (not HATATH); so the letter below the E of YATES in the final grid should be T (not H). But who’s checking?

   An early contender for one of the puzzles of the year? Thanks, Harribobs. (Still trying to figure out how it’s done.)

8. Another wow here. I cannot begin to imaging how on earth Harribobs did this. Superb and probably the one to beat for puzzle of the year already for me!

9. Kenmac-I think a charcoal grey jersey in cashmere would be in keeping with your blog.

   Hail Harribobs!

10. Bridgesong @2 & @3 and HG @7:

    Fixed I think hope.

11. kenmac @10: Bravo, grids fixed. (Table still shows HATATH as the entry for 22a tho’.)

12. Give him the POTY trophy now! One of the best ever. Bottom line should read Tour de Force (except there would be an empty cell).

13. I don’t solve these puzzles but enjoy reading about them.  This is mind-boggling. I wish I’d done it.

14. Having decided, that with politics now over, I will do the Inq regularly, I warmed up with the last one, and really enjoyed doing this one – but didn’t get the last stage. I worked out early on that it was about Grand Tour winners, and found them all quite quickly – except that I was briefly side-tracked by CORNET and to my shame didn’t know of Gimondi. Then there was about two hours spent fiddling with strips of paper, with colour-coded dots on. Then I realised that I had forgotten to colour-code the white ones. I could see a shape emerging, but it looked to me bit like the TdF logo, but not quite, so I assumed that I had transcribed one or two wrongly (probably had anyway) and gave up at that point. Therefore I missed the fantastic coloured jerseys ending. Brilliant, brilliant, Harribobs. Made me feel like the lowest of the domestiques, not worthy even to fetch H’s bottles.

15. Too tough for me, but I doff my cap to anyone who made it over the finishing line!

16. Utterly brilliant! A delight to solve and when the endgame was sorted we were amazed at the grid construction. We passed this on to our son who has never tackled an IQ before and he loved it too.

    Harribobs – How do you do it? We’d also give you the trophy now (Terrier@12)!

    Thanks kenmac for the splendid blog – we appreciate the time it must have taken.

17. Jaw dropping, how does he do it? I can’t begin to think how a grid like this can be constructed. Contador was my way in, being one of the few cyclists I’ve heard of. It’s not my sporting cup of tea. I tracked all the colours manually, not having the excel skills of some other solvers here. Surprisingly all went without hitch and a shake of the head in pure admiration of the final grid. Bravo (again) to Harribobs and my thanks to Kenmac for the write-up, a multi stage grid must be a bit of a pig to blog.

18. Ken: I just noticed your wordplay for 33a BASEL; I couldn’t figure out BASE = “brooding” either. Anyone else?

19. Maybe found for BASE, with brooding over to contain

20. James @13

    I’m intrigued by your comment.
    Do you do other crosswords and fear The Inquisitor?
    Are you simply a voyeur?
    Have you attempted an Inquisitor and ran away from it?
    Are you protecting your inner child?
    Would you rather not talk about it?

    But seriously, if you want to start doing these infernal puzzles then it will be immensely satisfying to complete your first one and eventually, you’ll crave your weekly fix.

    One way to get going is to solve it with someone. That someone can be more experienced or of equal experience – either way, two heads are better than one.

    Let us know.

    Yours,
    Crosworders Anonymous

21. James @19: Yes, that’s spot on.

22. Thanks to kenmac and Harribobs

    I had the humanitarians in 32a as the Red Cross, and in 35a CON “hiding” the publication, (mag), of/in “magIC”.

     

     

23. Dansar @22: so did I (Red Cross and MAGIC).

24. kenmac @13

    In order: yes, no, I don’t think so, no, oh yes, usually.

    I solve the occasional Listener; in fact, the last one was by Harribobs, with letters of countries in blocks of 9 forming most of the grid.  The occasional one is enough, so I’ve never tried an Inquisitor which would involve buying more newspapers than I want littering the house. I’m usually stuck with the Guardian at weekends, and only get a Listener if I can pinch one from elsewhere.

    I read the blogs because I like the puzzle structures and try and work out how they’re put together. This one stood out not just because of how remarkable it is but also because of its subject matter, with which I am rather obsessed (eg. Indy 10,212 was mine).

25. Really brilliant throughout. My only significant gripe is that the “purplish” cells in my printed copy of the i came out as a rather faded pinky red. That led me to assume that the pink & red jerseys were both also meant to be averaged out to pinky red. I’d preferred to have seen those cells as simply grey or another completely different shade to avoid being misled.

26. I filled the initial grid and enjoyed that very much.  That much was a worthy IQ offering in its own right. I didn’t have the time or motivation to go typing it all into a spreadsheet to get the final grids.  I expected the outcome to be something clever and so it was, but the activity was no longer a crossword but some other sort of puzzle.  Nothing wrong with that – just not my cup of tea.

    The grid construction and subsequent manipulations are very impressive indeed, a big thank you to kenmac for illustrating it all.  As a family we have been following the Grand Tours for years and have had a few family included visits to the TDF in a few family holidays. Waiting hours by the side of the road to watch 10 minutes of activity is actually much more fun than it sounds.

    Thanks to Harribobs for a very impressive puzzle.

27. Hi PeeDee@26 – I just wanted to try and counter the idea that spreadsheets and formulae were necessary to finish this. They really weren’t – I did it all manually and I know that Terrier did the same – and the blurb perhaps made this sound more daunting than it actually was. The reworking of column 1 to get the two new names had the effect of making the final column read VUELTA… and from there it was reasonably clear what was needed across the top and bottom rows. Cycling the letters to produce the top row also made the bottom row appear (or vice versa).

28. Wow. What a construction. Still a novice at IQ and was daunted by this. But I persisted and the satisfaction at completing it was immense. I too did this on (many, many sheets of) paper and the hardest part was keeping track of the colours and cycles. Amazing puzzle

29. Thank you Ken. Currently abroad, hence late posting, but loved this puzzle and your blog. Harribobs tha master great to finish it correctly

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