15 comments on “Inquisitor 1703: War and Peace by eXtent”

1. Well, I got there in the end. Lots of thanks to kenmac and eXtent.

   This solver was convinced (from the “guard” bit) that 1D was going to be WATCHDOG, which was equally unhelpful. I think HOG is a slight stretch from “corner” in the commercial sense of to gain a monopoly or to acquire enough of something to control the market.

2. PS: My reading of 23D was ELABORATED minus RATE (=standard) leaving letters to be engineered or anagrammed as ALBEDO, a scientific measure.

3. For me, this was another Inquisitor that was not so much a ‘Did not finish’ but more of a ‘Barely got started’ … with only three clues solved! An utterly pathetic performance, and my second such event in a row. Sometimes they just don’t seem to gel in my brain. I don’t know why. I refer to the phenomenon as me having gone ‘Word blind’. I can stare at clues for hours on end and just not see the obvious. Part of the sheer joy of the Inquisitor to me is that the degree of difficulty seems to be so hard to fix. Some just flow … others are like wading through treacle. Not knowing what to expect on Saturday morning is part of the fun.

   Many thanks once again to the all of the setters. I would actually really love to see some ’15×15′ Inquisitor grids, as after all, this here is Fifteen squared.

4. David @2 – I just realised, myself, that 23d was one I had on my list to revisit. I changed it as you were commenting. Many thanks.

5. I made good progress on the RH grid and very little on the left. Solved 42A taking go as the definition (as in go = no longer works) although not happy about it and entered FAIL. So later, had no definition for 45A and could not justify WORK. Guessed the 9-letter word was across the middle and saw it ended in …ANUS – CORIOLANUS? No, too long. Then found SUNA.. in the LH grid and the middle letter became clear. Rereading the preamble, I “corrected” the break in 42/45 to follow go, which justified WORK as RH answer.
   I had not spotted that the definitions in the 9 clues applied to both words. Instead, I took it to refer to the RH entry and that the LH entry was its contranym, with no definition in the clue. As it turned out, this did not affect the outcome and led to a fairly quick romp to the finish.
   Kenmac, Janus is often represented with two faces, one looking forward to the future and the other back to the past. Hence the reversals and the 9-letter highlight. The first month of the new year is named after him.
   Many thanks to the two halves of Extent for tricky puzzle with some nice PDMs. Also to Kenmac for a comprehensive blog.

6. Got to Janus all right, but retired with several gaps in the LH grid. I took the backward entries to be undefined, so was oblivious to the puzzle’s true cleverness (a feeling I had as I was solving it). Still don’t understand 44a and 31d.

   thanks to Kenmac and eXtent – enjoyable even with half a penny drop.

7. Neil Hunter @6 (& kenmac): 44a SEINE sounds like SANE = “himself” in Chambers; 31d INN = “local”, ER = RE< = "about", upset.
   No wordplay given for the last 3 downs.

8. Loved this. A really tough workout but fair and clear with the instructions. Until I worked out the J I was getting rather worried about the setters’ unhealthy interest in a body part.

9. I had abandoned this in the week it was set, having not been able to fathom more than half a dozen of the clues. I then finished 1704 quite quickly and revisited it. I still found it a struggle, though I did eventually complete it. I had a similar problem with HOG and SEINE. I did find the eventual denouement satisfying once I had discovered that Janus was the god of War and Peace. I think that the reason for the reversed words all being in the LH puzzle is simply that Janus is looking that way!
   Curate’s egg indeed Kenmac.

10. Quite enjoyed this, though, as others have said, on the tough side.
    Similar to Dave W @5, I had “go” = FAIL for 42/45a but then couldn’t justify WORK; later I switched “go” to WORK but then couldn’t … (frying pan, fire?); then it dawned on me, it was both, with “go” doing double duty. Aha!
    Unfortunately, when I was checking CONTRANYM on the www, I couldn’t help but see the first line of the Wikipedia entry which has “contronym, contranym or Janus word”, so I never had a chance to discover the J for myself – pity.
    Struggled with 16a RESEMBLED as EMBED wasn’t given as “correspondent” in the Chambers I was using.
    I expected the title to be a contranym for both WAR and PEACE, but it wasn’t …
    Thanks eXt(ernal/Serp)ent, and ken for the blog.

11. I thought this was a masterly puzzle. I’ll admit I found it rather a slog in the early stages, due to the convoluted nature of some of the clues. But once I realised how the “common feature” explained the apparent lack of definitions in some of the clues, and appreciated how clever this puzzle was, it became a pure joy to solve. Strange that neither spelling of CONTR(A/O)NYM is in Chambers, but a relief that an internet search brought up relevant material in the first few links. Terrific stuff.

12. I’d assumed that my initial rather slow progress was down to extenuating circumstances, so it comes as a surprise (and relief) to find that this was, indeed, tough. More rapid progress in the right hand grid was explained and evened out on finally spotting that backing should indeed be, though in retrospect it was a bit of a gift right there at the start. I sort of had enough of the misprints to get the required word, but by then I’d guessed for reasons that elude me what the highlighting would be. Probably something picked up in another puzzle. Satisfying overall I thought, and nicely realised.

13. me sat here etc.

    Yes, I know that feeling – and I think many others do as well.
    Some weeks I feel like giving up after the first half hour. But I find that walking away then coming back later sometimes helps.

14. Thank you, HG, for the clarifications.

15. I too find that some weeks (especially recently) I struggle to get much beyond a third way through the Inquisitor (one or two puzzles being near non-starters) so I’m a little surprised that so many regular posters here found this difficult when I actually managed to finish it, including getting the theme (hooray!). It was tricky, and I was solving two-three clues a day – a lot of head scratching involved! I didn’t understand how to parse a few answers, so, as usual, many thanks to Kenmac and others for clarifying these for me. Some you win, some you lose I guess, but it is nice to win sometimes!

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