Inquisitor 1631: Enchanted by Chalicea

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Hi of Hihoba here again. I’m trying to pay back my fellow bloggers who took up the slack when I was unwell, so two in a row from me.

I do enjoy Chalicea’s offerings. Clues not too complicated and a well thought out theme. Happily, like last week, a theme I am familiar with.

The rubric (mercifully short) read:

To 20dn 6 and 39 (all unclued) solvers must resolve eight clashes. There are misprints in the definition parts of 16 clues. Correct letters will reveal how solvers can obtain an instruction and identify the work. 6 and 39 must be entered in the order in which they appear in the work. 30 is in SOED.

So misprints, clashes and a hidden instruction. I just ploughed on with the clues. The top half yielded quite readily, the bottom half was fine but took a bit more thought. None of the clues gave me too much trouble to parse, and I identified significant numbers of the 16 misprints in the process.

While entering the answers, the clashes all appeared to be on the same diagonal, and I was missing the first of the eight, but had ?S, HA, ER, AQ, US, ET, RE, NO. The missing first letter was due to getting 14A wrong, and entering POSS (short for possible = epitomises?) instead of POTS – Holes locally. However the resolving of the clashes looked a bit complex, so I moved on, hoping to go back to that later when I had a lead.

I had THIRD CLUE LETTERS for the corrected misprints, so I duly listed the third letter of each clue.

ELIMINATE THE RULER OF THE NIGHT. DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE. We are in Mozart country. The work is The Magic Flute, an allegory on the secret society of Masons, of which both Mozart and his librettist were members.  In it THE QUEEN OF THE NIGHT asks Prince TAMINO to rescue her daughter PAMINA from SARASTRO, the leader of the cult. If you want to know more of the plot try here. I warn you, it doesn’t make an enormous amount of sense – the plot is incidental to the music!

Anyway the rubric had to 20D 6 and 39: So 20D (unclued) must be UNITE. In the plot TAMINO appears first (6A) and PAMINA (39A) later and they are UNITEd in the end.

Back to the clashes. We were told to eliminate the ruler of the night:

T H E Q U E E N
S A R A S T R O

 

So resolving the clashes removing THE QUEEN leaves SARASTRO.

I call that pretty neat. Thank you Chalicea, nice one!

In the grid below, I have highlighted Sarastro for clarity. This is not required.

 

Across
 No.  Clue definition [misprint] correction  Answer  Wordplay  X
1 One mi[l]te I raced, finally, pursuing ace vehicle (6) ACARID A(ce) + CAR (vehicle) + I + (race)D T
6 See preamble (6) TAMINO
11 Pilau cooked with love principally for small remedy (6) PILULA [PILAU + L(ove)]*
14 Epitomizes [m]holes locally (4) POTS Double definition H
15 Almond-flavoured cookies, nag breaking into a dry one (8) AMARETTI MARE (nag) in A + TT (dry) + I (one)
16 Slipshod pale autos, having no brightly-coloured appendages (9) APETALOUS [PALE AUTOS]*
18 Kingston’s fruits contrarily try to reach California (6) ACKEES SEEK (try) + CA (California) all reversed
20 Uranium pursued by lecturer with revolutionary skill way beyond norm (5) ULTRA U(ranium) + L(ecturer) + ART (skill) reversed
22 Act clutching one inferior g[u]in (4) RUIN RUN (act) round I (one) I
24 Queen involved with Chinese dynasty (3) QIN Q(ueen) + IN (involved with)
26 Detaching coat of Madagascan forest-dweller is a bi[n]rd (3) EMU LEMUR (Madagascan forest-dweller) minus coat (first and last letters) R
27 To have occasion for knee bend now and then (4) NEED Alternate letters in kNeE bEnD
28 The win[e]d from the south-west (not the States) (5) NOTUS NOT + US (States) D
29 More dry and withered visionary embracing augmented reality (6) SEARER SEER (visionary) round A(ugmented) R(eality)
30 Study empty evidence following trial that’s challenged winner in primary? (9) CONTESTEE CON (study) + TEST (trial) + E(videnc)E
36 Sellers on-line, European seamsters, we hear (8) E-TAILERS E(uropean) + (sounds like) TAYLORS (seamsters)
37 Overnight lodging-places in north and south (4) INNS IN + N(orth) + S(outh)
38 Sort of [r]cat unusually close to but not principally serval (6) OCELOT [CLO(s)E TO]* S(erval) removed C
39 See preamble (6)
40 Flower parts from crushed petals (6) PALETS [PETALS]*

Down
 No. Clue definition [misprint] correction  Answer  Wordplay  X
1 Effects of make up can appease touch of redness surprisingly (11) APPEARANCES [CAN APPEASE R(edness)]*
2 Detroit’s descendant; venerated symbol with confidence primarily rising (4) CION ICON with C(onfidence) rising
3 Athletic line initially scrambled over as well (4) ALSO A(thletic) + L(ine) + S(crambled) O(ver)
4 Speed up team game on show, cutting second half (4) RUSH RU (team game) + SH(ow)
5 Montmartre’s ladies, o[d]ld vulgar pantomime performers (5) DAMES Double definition L
7 Spiritual emanation in boundless groups of hermitages (4) AURA LAURAS are groups of hermitages – remove first and last letters
8 Night light covering wing of White House for mason’s r[a]ubble (7) MOELLON MOON (night light) round ELL (wing of White House? I couldn’t find any direct references to this) U
9 Athirst for casual piebald horse that fails to start (4) INTO PINTO (piebald) minus P (start)
10 Bits of shaved stud in nostril, one’s b[l]eing(6) NATURE (s)TU(d) in NARE (nostril) E
12 Dad to endlessly diss local dialect (6) PATOIS PA (dad) + TO + (d)IS(s)
13 Painfully disarms nits, ones who dislike ma[t]les (11) MISANDRISTS [DISARMS NITS]* L
17 Presumptuously inquires what can be won from audition (5) PRIES Sounds like PRIZE
19 Razed, in Dublin, Scottish dr[o]ess(4) KILT Irish killed and Scottish dress, double definition E
20 See preamble (5) UNITE
21 Craftsman, perhaps, who kno[w]ts rank (4) TIER Double definition T
23 Southern-sea cephalopods (Latin rendering, with universal classifications essentially) (7) NAUTILI [LATIN U]* + (classif)I(cations)
24 Bubbly 5 besieging university diver[g]ted (6) AMUSED [DAMES (5A)]* round U(niversity) T
25 Useless f[a]ellow for the Bard, far too poor (6) FOOTRA [FAR TOO]* E
29 Maritime cities on the up, leading to censure (5) STROP PORTS (maritime cities) reversed
31 By force obtaining property of upset fellow, seizing acreage (4) NAAM MAN reversed round A(creage)
32 All over new beer’s vigorous fo[a]rm (4) ELAN N(ew) + ALE all reversed R
33 Moolah in S E Asia giving rise to lesson for highlanders (4) RIEL LEIR (Scots to teach) reversed
34 Actor’s part to get under way it’s said (4) ROLE Sounds like ROLL (to get under way)
35 [D]Swelling hit hard keels over (4) KNOT TONK (hit hard) reversed S

10 comments on “Inquisitor 1631: Enchanted by Chalicea”

  1. Pretty neat indeed. The opera remains a mystery to me so I was reliant on Wikipedia’s (hopefully) accurate summary to complete the grid, but thoroughly enjoyable nevertheless.

  2. The preamble made interesting reading. From the brief instructions in the first two sentences I ventured to assume that there would be only eight clashes altogether and at most only one misprinted letter in any clue.

    I enjoyed solving the clues, some of which were delightfully tricky. I put in VARLET first at 38a, as it matched the wordplay perfectly – the definition slightly less so. Changing it later to OCELOT duly released the C of CLUE in the message and cleared up two unwanted clashes. I solved ACARID last of all, finally getting my missing T of THIRD and clearing up MUSH vs RUSH at 4d (which I hadn’t parsed).

    I was very impressed by the grid construction and by the way the resolved clashes left real words in the grid. I admired also the setter’s achievement in writing each clue with the imposition of a given letter in the third position. The Z must have been a challenge!

    Many thanks to Chalicea, and to Hihoba again for a clear blog.

  3. 8d: In my Chambers, ell[2] is “same as el[1]”. El[1] is “an elevated railroad”. El[2] is “a wing giving a building the shape of the letter L (US). So the clue doesn’t quite work (unless a later edition of Chambers has changed the situation).

    An enjoyable Inquisitor and not too difficult. Thanks to Chalicea and to Hihoba.

  4. For some reason, I convinced myself that 20D was bound to be ‘untie’, although the plot summary had scant references to rope, chain or string. Hence also missed ‘Sarastro’ as the flip side to The Queen. Very careless.

    Thanks to Hi for the illumination, and Chalicea for a neat and very fairly clued puzzle.

  6. It’s a real pleasure to see Chalicea’s name at the top of a puzzle, and this was a gem even by her standards. It helped that the theme was so far up my street it got lost and had to ask for directions. A joy from start to finish as, indeed, is Die Zauberflöte.

  7. Another enjoyable puzzle from Chalicea, which I found to be an easier solve than her previous IQ 6 weeks ago. A clever construction and a very neat finish. We are not great opera buffs but we both love the aria “The Queen of the Night”, but it does need a singer who is up to the task.

    Thanks to Chalicea and Hihoba.

  8. Such an enjoyable puzzle! The third letter part was excellent and the SARASTRO/THE QUEEN clashes were a masterstroke. Realising the two shaded entries would have the same clued letters took me to the Mozart quite quickly.

    Normally, I would shy away from puzzles with clashes, but being a Chalicea, I gave it a go – the clashes soon came clear at the end. Not that this one was easy, but a fair tussle in the end.

    Chalicea was the first IQ that I solved (Heaven in 2018), so she will always have a special place in my heart – that year I solved 2 in total.

    Fast forward to 2020…In January I have solved the same amount. How far I have come – but also, how far I still need to go.

    Thanks to both Chalicea and Hihoba

  9. Many thanks for your lovely warm comments and to Hihoba – so glad that you are well again. I enjoyed setting this one enormously, even though the opera has such an absurd plot. As you say, it is a vehicle for the wonderful music (I remember taking my small sons to it when the Queen of the Night was raised on stilts or something under a massive night-coloured dress – unforgettable!) Apologies to John Lowe and Hihoba for the ‘non-Chambers’ ELL in 8d. Webster, Collins, the OED and Wictionary all give the ‘wing of a building’ definition for ELL but some claim it as an American term, which was the reason for the ‘White House’ reference. Chambers needs an update – but I should have seen the omission in its EL definitions.

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