At the time of writing, it looks to me like Ifor will be at or near the top of the last year’s Inquisitor ranking.
Preamble: Each across clue is actually three clues run together. Solvers must remove one letter from each answer and enter the resulting words where they will fit in the three places designated. Answer lengths are given in ascending order, which is not necessarily that of the three entries or their clues. Six down clues each contain an extra word of four or more letters. When read in clue order one letter from each spells the second word of a title (6, 6) to be written under the grid, justifying the changes to across answers. The unchecked initial letters in six down entries will assist.
I started on the down clues as all bar 6 were normal, solved about three in the top half but had greater success in the bottom half. Consequently, I started with the last triplet of across clues as I had some intersecting letters to work with. I don’t know why “Answer lengths are given in ascending order” instead of entry order, since it was clear that each answer had to have just a single letter removed before entry and there was no ambiguity apart from the middle row – it just made matters a bit more fiddly. Anyway, things were progressing quite well in the bottom half (just over 50% done) and although most of the removals were D‘s, there was the occasional T in each set of three. This brought to mind Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi (“Hey farmer farmer, Put away that DDT now”) – that’s three words (3, 6, 4) not two words (6, 6), but I was sure I was on the right track.
The upper half was proving more stubborn, and at some point, by way of diversion, I succumbed to the offer of assistance from the “unchecked initial letters in six down entries“; reading row-by-row then left to right they spelt CARSON. So I Googled CARSON DDT …
Rachel Carson was an American conservationist whose book Silent Spring advanced the global environmental movement (~Wikipedia).
I could pick out the first two letters of SPRING from ISLAND & COUP, and the last two letters from DAMN & CAMPAIGN, but I had thus far omitted to note the redundant WORCESTER, and from the few remaining unsolved down clues I could now identify BUSINESS. Just a few clues left to polish off, and I was done.
I noted that the removals in each triplet were D,D,T in that order – we’d expect nothing less from Ifor, to whom thanks. But admirable though it was, it probably won’t be a contender for puzzle of the year.
And try as I might, I couldn’t unscramble the wordplay for 26a where the clue suggests that the R of TRIES moves forward, but it needs to “advance” towards the end.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 8 12 |
Gradual decline; new designers taking over | [D]EGRESSION | [DESIGNERS]* around O(ver) |
| refuse direction finder, keeping airmen | [D]RAFF | DF (direction finder) around RAF (airmen) | |
| ready at hand without name already entered (5, 6, 10) | PRESE[T] | PRESENT (ready at hand) ¬ N(ame) | |
| 13 15 16 |
Early perplexity remained, leaving one rebuilding | MEAN[D]ER | [REMAINED]* ¬ I (one) |
| extension for staff to hold notes under control reeling about | LE[D]GER LINE | LED (under control) [REELING]* | |
| badly, with one in box most reserved (7, 9, 10; two words) | CHILLIES[T] | ILL (badly) I (one) in CHEST (box) | |
| 18 19 21 |
Quavers many times, perhaps not allowed to keep up | NONUPLE[T] | NON (not) LET (allowed) around UP |
| thrust in knife play | [D]RAMA | RAM (thrust) in DA (knife) | |
| marked by experience of returning criminal racket (5, 7, 8) | LIVE[D]-IN | EVIL< (criminal) DIN (racket) | |
| 23 25 26 |
Poet’s secretary provides secret shelters | [D]ESSE | (provi)DES SE(cret) |
| enthusiastically, while at first casually concealing licentiate | WIL[D]LY | W(hile) IDLY (casually) around L(icentiate) | |
| attempts with right to advance taxes (5, 5, 6) | [T]IRES | TRIES (attempts) with R(ight) moving later ??? | |
| 29 33 35 |
One holding back sides of dense stratum | [D]ELAYER | D(ens)E LAYER (stratum) |
| applies force to consolidate impression with spades moving | [T]AMPS | STAMP (impression) with S(pades) moving | |
| stones across a wall from vacant position spread out (5, 7, 8) | PARPEN[D]S | [P(ositio)N SPREAD]* | |
| 36 38 39 |
Cleanses rubbish inside, emptied from uranium | MUN[D]IFIES | [INSIDE F(ro)M U(ranium)]* |
| bromide left as struggling group of plants, | BROMELIA[D]S | [BROMIDE L(eft) AS]* | |
| say, omits wavering self-importance (7, 9, 10) | EGO[T]ISM | EG (say) [OMITS]* | |
| 40 41 42 |
Session including group of workers involved with sensuality | S[T]EAMINESS | SESS(ion) around TEAM (group of workers) IN (with) |
| of Apollo’s birthplace nailed synthetic | [D]ELAIN | [NAILED]* | |
| tears of hopeless nerds (5, 6, 10) | REN[D]S | [NERDS]* | |
| Down | No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 | Impressive [island] visible in the picture (4) | EPIC | (th)E PIC(ture) |
| 2 | Grief once surrounding heart of that sort of mountain in Scotland (6) | GRAHAM | GRAM (grief, obs) around (t)HA(t) |
| 3 | Emigrés’ [coup] overturned systems of government (7) | REGIMES | [EMIGRES]* |
| 4 | Skeletal hollow of half-decommissioned nuclear facility (5) | SELLA | SELLA(field) (decommissioned nuclear facility) |
| 5 | Quivering in spider that’s left for dead (it had eight legs) (8) | SLEIPNIR | [IN SPIDER] with L(eft) for D(ead) |
| 6 | Naïve kid on good terms with university fed inside information (6) | INGÉNU | IN (on good terms with) U(niversity) around GEN (inside information) |
| 7 | Liverymen failing to impress me, going round [Worcester] timidly (7) | NERVILY | [LIVERYMEN ¬ ME]* |
| 9 | Flowers vanish, barely half-seen when coming up (6) | ANISES | (v)ANIS(h) SE(en)< |
| 10 | Provided and contracted returns accepted by companion formerly burning natural gas (7) | FEN-FIRE | IF (provided) ’N’ (and) both< in FERE (companion, archaic) |
| 11 | Licence charge covering [business], ultimately per head (8) | FREENESS | FEE (licence charge) around (pe)R NESS (head) |
| 14 | Group of families caught up in criminal cycle (4) | CLAN | (crimi)NAL C(ycle)< |
| 17 | Hail right of state to secede (3) | AVE | AVER (state) ¬ R(ight) |
| 20 | Record that’s passed concerning clause (8) | REMEMBER | RE (concerning) MEMBER (clause) |
| 22 | Excuses money, banking on redundancy (8) | PLEONASM | PLEAS (excuses) M(oney) around ON |
| 24 | Spend a lot on evacuations, holding line after last moves to the North (7) | SPLURGE | PURGES (evacuations) around L(ine) with last letter earlier |
| 25 | Sorrow of Macbeth, seen as wavering and led by wife (7) | WAENESS | [SEEN AS]* after W(ife) |
| 27 | Cocked hat thrown miles in the air is then casually dropped (7) | RAMILIE | [MILES IN THE AIR]* ¬ [IS THEN]* {see comment #18} |
| 28 | Bar social group consuming nothing (6) | SALOON | SALON (social group) around O (nothing) |
| 29 | Reported opportunities to assess money (3) | PYX | homophone: PICKS (opportunities) |
| 30 | Secretion before a meal, brought up when swallowing cheap gin (6) | PRUINA | AP< (ante prandium, L) around RUIN (cheap gin) |
| 31 | Box for money, so a foe loses every round (4) | SAFE | SO A FOE ¬ O-O |
| 32 | [Damn] silly person, giving up name to keep acting in musical works (6) | OPERAS | [PERSON]* ¬ N(ame) around A(cting) |
| 34 | Child of migrants granted citizenship, to take effect unless circumstances dictate European [campaign] intervenes (5) | NISEI | NISI (to take effect unless …) around E(uropean) |
| 37 | Offences generally ubiquitous in struggling prisons (4) | SINS | (ubiquitou)S IN S(truggling) |
|
|
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I enjoyed this but wasted a lot of time hunting for a Joni Mitchell connection. I had never heard of Rachel Carson or her books, but Wikipedia provided all the details.
I had no issue with 26 across: the T appears later in the word, towards the end. That seems natural to me.
Thanks to all.
CARSON was my PDM: at that point I hadn’t even registered that the omitted letters were all DDT. I was familiar with the book, so guessed it immediately from the enumeration even though I hadn’t yet identified all the extra words in the down clues. In fact I never did get all six, but it didn’t matter; and I (wrongly, but it didn’t matter) thought that “visible” was the extra word in 1 down. I could derive SPR.NG from the words I did identify and that was enough to confirm my guess.
I wasn’t entirely happy about equating pyx with money: the Chambers definition says it is a box at the Mint in which sample coins are kept, which isn’t the same thing. Disentangling three clues run together out of order was challenging (and no doubt presented problems for Ifor in setting the puzzle).
Sorry – I meant T advances along the word, in the direction of writing, it appears later in the word. I think “advance” could justifiably indicate a move in either direction.
bridgesong – I think the definition is for PYX as a verb, to asses the fitness of the contents of the box
Rachel Carson was a useful key for me — I never even thought of Joni Mitchell, but Carson’s The Sea Around Us made a big impression on me when I were a lad. I liked the neat Ifor touches such as the missing letters from each across answer in normal grid sequence being (repeatedly) D D and T in that order, while the superfluous words also contained two Ds and a T. The title is an anagram of SILENT, though at first I also kept TINSEL in mind since we were getting close to Twelfth Night and the removal of Christmas decorations from the environment …
Many thanks to Ifor and HG.
Unfortunately, this puzzle was another by Ifor that I did not enjoy very much and did not finish. (I was going to give the Inquisitor a rest that week, but a friendly word in my ear suggested it was worth a try!)
Of all puzzles by this setter that I have attempted since I started doing the Inquisitor I appreciated two very much for their well-executed designs (one themed on a prime number sequence and the other on Christiaan Barnard) but for different reasons was unable to finish them. I have yet to go the distance with any of Ifor’s puzzles.
I nevertheless congratulate Ifor on being the creator (evidently) of at least one of the most popular puzzles of 2019 according to the poll of solvers in this community.
The across clues looked a little daunting at first, second and indeed third glance. Having failed miserably to solve any I turned to the downs, which were a different kettle of fish altogether, and from that point on it was pretty plain sailing. Thoroughly enjoyable too. I also didn’t see any issues with 26ac…
My thanks, as always. Perhaps it was so obvious as not to be worth mentioning – but the intention was that solvers would LISTEN to the six superfluous words and so select from them each of their silent letters (those in red in HG’s blog). David – your spot of D/D/T in those words is remarkable, but I can’t lay any claim to planning it.
I wonder also if it was noticed that there are no Ds or Ts anywhere in the grid?
Alan – I hope you’ll persevere, should any future Ifor puzzles appear, here or elsewhere. Perhaps I can become a (gradually) acquired taste.
Ifor
Thanks Ifor for a challenging and engaging puzzle. We always smile when we see your name attached to an IQ. The DDT took a while to sort out, partly because we had an R for 26ac although we cannot now remember why.
We had to google DDT and novel to sort out the author and title – it did ring a bell somewhere but not loud enough for us to remember it without a search.
Thanks to HG too.
A slow start on this one, although some clues turned out to be easier than they looked once I had guessed the answer. When a few DDTs started to appear, the reason for the triplets became clear and the across solving became easier. I totally forgot about the last sentence of the preamble, so had to resort to Wiki to find Carson and the title. I did not expect to finish and was quite pleased when I did.
I had problems with 2 clues. For a long time I was undecided in 26A whether “attempts” or “taxes” was the definition and hence whether to enter IRES or RIES. Also “taxes” could define both TRIES & TIRES. HG, I do not understand your parsing of 27D: I tried removing ISTHEN from various strings in the clue and juggling the remainder but nothing seemed to quite work. Suggestions anyone?
No-one so far has observed that, taking SPRING as an anagrind, SILENT produces LISTEN. Perhaps too obvious to mention.
Thanks to Ifor for what was, in the end, a satisfying challenge and to HG for the usual solid analysis.
@Ifor – it certainly wasn’t obvious to this solver and frankly I’d be surprised if many others had a different experience. ‘When read in clue order…’ is such a common string of words in the average barred puzzle that I think it might be expecting a bit too much if the solver to suddenly clock the significance of the word ‘read’! An enjoyable puzzle all the same and I hang my head on shame that I didn’t realise the absence of D and T in the final grid. Thanks.
@Dave W – you might want to look again..It’s an anagram of MILES IN THE AIR less the letters of IS THEN. It leaves RAMILIE.
Another one here who missed the little extras that you mentioned, Ifor. Very clever, although I will say that picking out 6 letters from the additional words in the down clues seems to me be an unnecessarily unhelpful way of leading solvers to Spring.
Bingybing – I have maybe expressed myself poorly. I agree that “read” is too common to merit special interpretation; my point was that the title suggests what was involved. And Norman – comments above bear out my assumption that Carson would be the way in for most solvers, with the recognition of the silent then being seen as confirmation and perhaps a final PDM.
Thanks to both for voicing your concerns.
Thanks to HolyGhost and Ifor
This is perhaps a little cheeky, but could I ask setters to not reveal such wrinkles as Ifor does @8 until at least a day after the blog.
I say cheeky because I don’t always do the Inquisitor (unless the Listener is easy or it is a number puzzle), but I always enjoy the blog.
If I had done the puzzle (and I accept of course that the blog is primarily for those that have), then I may have had time to work out the silent spring thing.
It seemed obvious that the instruction to choose letters from six extra words was a little vague, but I had only got as far as listing their positions in the words (2,4,3 or 9?,4,4,7), before I noticed Ifor’s explanation – my fault, I shouldn’t have looked!
I wrote a longish and appreciative response earlier today – and then neglected to press ‘post’. Rather similar to my not reading the rubric fully and therefore not getting to ‘Carson’, which would have enabled me to nail it.
I do think the business of the silent letters is extremely clever (though I did guess ‘spring’ over the other tempter, ‘scream’). Who would have thought it?
Many thanks to Ifor and HG.
Thanks HG and Ifor-I hadnt noticed how green was my griddy.
So ahead of her time (Well Rachel and Joni)
Nice puzzle
Dave W @10 & Bingybing @12: wordplay for 27d RAMILIE now fixed – my notes were correct but the typo crept in when I was writing the blog.
And sincere apologies to Ifor for not spotting the more obvious extras: no D’s or T’s in the grid, SILENT = [LISTEN]*, maybe even Silent Spring as a cryptic clue for the title of the puzzle. Rather too subtle, I’m afraid, was to select the silent letters from the six superfluous words – and for me, at least, whether or not the R in Worcester is silent is debatable. Maybe iron would have been less controversial?
No apologies necessary, HG, and thank you for the various clarifications.
As to IRON, I decided to avoid using it (despite the fact that it would have been much more readily concealable) because the R is sounded in US English, and also (I believe) in some parts of the UK. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with WORCESTER, but couldn’t find any alternative. A more positive way to look at it would be that it might provoke the solver into wondering why this particular word was chosen, given that its only function was to provide a single letter.
I suppose the added problem with WORCESTER is that it arguably has 3 silent letters!
@Dansar – yes it is just a tad cheeky – if I were planning on tackling a puzzle the very last thing I would do is head to a blog whose sole purpose is to blog about the solution!
Very enjoyable puzzle and thanks to Ifor for another good one. Little bit depressing that it feels as though no-one does actually Listen sometimes.
Thanks Bingybing@12. I thought I had tried this but is was clearly too late in the day for me to see correctly!
#19, Ifor. In the wild lands north of Hadrian’s Wall we do indeed say ‘eye-ron’. In the Sassenach tongue, to us the ‘r’ is less silent than displaced – ‘eye-urn’. We also say ‘biz-i-ness’ rather than ‘bizness’. And on the same theme, to us the three words lava, larva and laver are utterly different and distinct in speech.
Great puzzle, though!