I seem to recall that Hedge-sparrow’s other Inquisitor puzzle had quite a lot going on.
Preamble: The outer cells contain a phrase (nine words) from a speech made by the person whose name appears in the bottom row. Eleven clues include an extra sequence of three letters (to be removed before solving, always leaving a real word or words). These letters spell out the immediately preceding phrase from the speech, minus the name of the character (to be completed by solvers) appearing in the other silver cells. The remaining unclued entry is a pertinent name. Solvers must highlight the name of a musical work (three words, 14 cells in total) which uses the phrases as part of its lyrics, together with the initials of its creator (three cells, diagonally contiguous). 34 is in Collins.
I managed quite a few answers on the first run through, including about half of the three-letter sequences to be removed. The former helped more than the latter as I clearly had gaps between the removals. Looking for ‘obvious’ removals in the intervening clues was both enjoyable and fruitful, even if I didn’t manage to solve the adjusted clue straightaway.
The letters that remained after quite a number of the removals simply formed part of the answer (10a “me”, 24d “ming”), or part of an anagram of the answer (18a “line”, 1d “trace” ), though some bits were more cryptic (33a “ring”, 22d “pee”, 27d “over”) and one or two were anagram indicators (21a “defile”). Suffice it to say, the grid (absent perimeter) was filled before too long, ANGEL OF DEATH appearing top right. I tried to figure out the name for the bottom row, and the phrase for the rest of the perimeter – not helped by having pencilled in IZRAEL for the unclued entry – but bailed out after a short while and resorted to Googling “The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land.” (I’m not sure if using Chambers to get to the correct AZRAEL would have made guessing the quote more likely.)
The remaining fragment of the speech by John Bright (in the House of Commons on 23-Feb-1855 in opposition to the Crimean War) is “You may almost hear the beating of his wings“. And so, onto the next stage of the hunt …
I can no longer remember the route I followed, but there is a remaining sense that it was somewhat circuitous; nevertheless it terminated at DONA NOBIS PACEM (“Grant us Peace”), in the lyrics of which the phrases occur. And that, itself, appears in a cantata written by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1936.
Thanks Hedge-sparrow – I now know lot more about John Bright than I was aware of before, and I’d like to find out even more. It seems he could teach us a lot, given the current echoes of the rise of mid-19th century nationalism. (And once again, quite a lot going on.) I don’t think that the title needs elucidation …
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue | xxx | Answer | Wordplay |
| 4 | Zealot disposing of nearly all recycled card (4) | TOZE | [ZEALOT ¬ AL(l)]* | |
| 6 | Unionist detained by overprotective, regressive Chinese province (6) | YUNNAN | U(nionist) in NANNY (overprotective) all< | |
| 8 | Special cellulose-based material applied by aerosol (usually) (7) | SPRAY-ON | SP(ecial) RAYON (cellulose-based material) | |
| 10 | [The]me incorporating account by university fellow is “Ancient Kingdom of Europe” (7) | THE | MACEDON | ME around AC(count) DON (university fellow) |
| 11 | Are engines at the front or back of planes? (4) | AERO | A(re) E(ngines) OR< | |
| 12 | Formally qualified Master (English and French) (4) | MEET | M(aster) E(nglish) ET (and, Fr) | |
| 13 | Swedish authoress, winner of Nobel Prize competition drunken yob drops out of (8) | LAGERLÖF | LAGER LOUT (drunken yob) ¬OUT OF | |
| 16 | Look after half of [has]sock by oneself (4) | HAS | SOLO | LO(ok) after SO(ck) |
| 18 | Make a [bee]line for foreigner (5) | BEE | ALIEN | [A LINE]* |
| 20 | Division of GIs seizing Japanese immigrant in the US (5) | ISSEI | (G)IS SEI(zing) | |
| 21 | Defi[nab]le ways across northern chasms (5) | NAB | YAWNS | [WAYS]* around N(orthern) |
| 23 | Origin of reflective scripture (4) | FONT | OF< NT (New Testament, scripture) | |
| 26 | Semitic idiom about sheep translated amiss (except the last bit) (8) | ARAMAISM | A(bout) RAM (sheep) [AMIS(s)]* | |
| 28 | Dart Romeo’s fired in a straight line (4) | AROW | ARROW (dart) ¬ R(omeo) | |
| 29 | Persuade one to leave Manhattan? (4) | MOVE | MOVIE (e.g. Manhattan) ¬ I (one) | |
| 30 | Well-known top spin bowler (7) | PACEMAN | NAME (well-known) CAP (top) all< | |
| 32 | Wild sheep I’m directed towards at back of museum (7) | MUSIMON | I’M ON (directed towards) after MUS(eum) | |
| 33 | Opening of sonnet penned by [Roa]ring Jane of Wales (a legendary poet) (6) | ROA | OSSIAN | S(onnet) in O (ring) SIAN (Jane, Welsh) |
| 34 | Cool heads of antibrexiteers needed in new government (4) | NANG | A(ntibrexiteers) N(eeded) in N(ew) G(overnment) | |
| Down | No. | Clue | xxx | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 | Trace[d th]rough bit of sleuthing, makes a response (6) | DTH | REACTS | [TRACE]* S(leuthing) |
| 2 | Violent criminal covering local district in the US (4) | HOOD | triple definition | |
| 3 | Got very hot setting up thrash around [Rou]en (6) | ROU | BURNED | DRUB (thrash) around EN all< |
| 5 | Elongate narrow opening cut under my spinal cord (6) | MYELON | MY ELONGATE ¬ GATE (narrow opening) | |
| 7 | Actor playing on raised pedestal (7) | ACROTER | [ACTOR]* RE< (on) | |
| 9 | Fish faces (5) | DARES | double definition | |
| 14 | Burdock used in cooking initially gives off unpleasant smell (4) | GOBO | G(ives) O(ff) B.O. (unpleasant smell) | |
| 15 | Light-coloured smokes from Coral Sea, endlessly swirling (7) | CLAROES | [CORAL SE(a)]* | |
| 17 | Poor quality lo[g-ho]use out of use following spot of infestation (4) | GHO | LO-FI | LOUSE ¬ USE F(ollowing) I(nfestation) |
| 19 | Confine unruly European men and women (5) | ENMEW | [E(uropean) MEN W(omen)]* | |
| 20 | Working mines above hydrogen trap (6) | INMESH | [MINES]* H(ydrogen) | |
| 22 | Brazil-wood juice one’s used to coat p[utt]ee (6) | UTT | SAPPAN | SAP (juice) AN (one) around P (pee) |
| 24 | Passing up river, sailor [hel]ming is becoming spiritless (6) | HEL | TAMING | TAR (sailor) ¬ R(iver) MING |
| 25 | Press innovator, brother to wet nurse in E. Asia (6) | BRAMAH | BR(other) AMAH (wet nurse, E. Asia) | |
| 27 | Out-of-date notification from [And]over supporting chief of Air Force (5) | AND | AVISO | O(ver) after A(ir) VIS (force) |
| 31 | Sound like a farm cat perhaps that’s run into dog (4) | CURR | R(un) in CUR (dog) | |
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I had a slightly different solving experience. I had most, if not all of the bottom half of the puzzle quite quickly, and had ?O?N?R?GHT in the bottom section reserved for the author and the several letters in the start and end of the quote. I Googled JOHN BRIGHT on spec and came immediately to the quote. It was a quick matter to complete the top half, and decipher the extra letters, AZRAEL and ANGEL OF DEATH appearing in the process. I found RVW before the piece, and a brief internet search and it was all over.
Too quick really, but once you have Googled, you can’t go back and un-Google!
Thanks to HG and Hedge-sparrow. Is there any reason for the superfluous hyphen in hedge-sparrow?
Hedge-sparrow’s previous puzzle ‘Almost Surely’, from almost exactly one year ago, was one of my highlights of 2019 – a theme based on infinity.
This was another well-constructed and interesting puzzle. At one point, though, when I had solved about two-thirds of the clues, I didn’t recognise any of the thematic material, either in the perimeter or in the letters extracted from the clues, and having so few crossing letters to help with the remaining clues (especially in the top right) I was prepared to give up.
I got lucky when I looked again along the bottom row, where I had all five crossing letters of the name. Of all the possible or likely names involving (say) John or Joan and Bright or Wright I had actually heard of John Bright. When I looked him up in my Chambers Biographical Dictionary, and also in Encyclopaedia Britannica, I found the two consecutive extracts needed. I had no trouble then in finding the musical connection to finish it off (although I had to resort to Google to do so).
I liked very much the way the sets of three letters were ‘hidden’ in the clues, three of them in particular: ‘defi[nab]le’ in 21a, ‘trace[d th]rough’ in 1d and ‘around [Rou]en’ in 3d. (In the last of these one has to pick the second of the two instances of ROU.)
Thanks to Hedge-sparrow for a very satisfying themed puzzle and to HolyGhost for a comprehensive blog.
A good, absorbing puzzle that I didn’t find too tricky – albeit I needed Mr Google to help with the unfamiliar theme. One though a little contrary to the editor’s assertion that something lighter was to be found in the puzzles section given the generally apocalyptic stories in the preceding pages. 🙂
I found this a steady clue solve and agree with AB @2 that some of the hidden triples were very neat. Having answered them all and used Chambers to find “0D”, I was able to guess ANGEL & DEATH and then make a stab at the perimeter phrase which turned out to be correct (nice positioning of the OF next to ANGEL by the way). Did not guess the name at the bottom as I was fixated on the surname being WRIGHT so then resorted to Wiki with the quote, whereupon the finale fell into place without too much difficulty.
Thanks to HS for an enjoyable puzzle and to HG for the usual thorough blog.
Thanks to Hedge-sparrow and HolyGhost
Nice puzzle, interesting subject but I was confused by:
8a “usually”
5d “narrow”
31d “farm”
Dansar @5
In 8a, ‘… usu by an aerosol’ is straight from the Chambers definition of spray-on.
In 5d, ‘narrow opening’ for gate is also straight from Chambers.
But ‘farm’ in 31d is a mystery to me.
comments @5 & @6: I was in two minds about querying “farm” in 31d – my best guess is that it is serving as a proxy for “dialect” (see the definition of CURR in Chambers).
I found this a good challenge, plenty tricky enough, and the hidden triplets a very nice idea. I can’t be alone in guessing ‘Azrael’ and assuming it would be John Milton along the bottom (but then, 24D had to be taming). But I had enough of the phrase, and an idea of John Bright, to employ a famous search engine.
Thanks to H-s and HG.
The famous search engine has been mentioned a few times already, prompting me to say that I use Google as little as possible with Inquisitors. In this puzzle I used it only to find the music connection (@2 above I said “I had to resort to Google”), but even then, having found Vaughan Williams, I used my music dictionary to find the name of a work that was likely to relate to the theme and could be found (somewhere and somehow) in the grid. Searching for that via a powerful search engine would have been many times more efficient, but I dislike doing that.
Thank you Alan and HG
I’m still not entirely convinced, but I may be being too critical.