Inquisitor 1710: The Lord and the Lady by Ifor

21 comments on “Inquisitor 1710: The Lord and the Lady by Ifor”

1. I think the cryptic suggestion is that F is B, R is A etc. so FRANC is BACON.

   I found this very hard and very satisfying. I’d be interested if anyone else went down a Hitchcock rabbit hole. (Lord and Lady of suspense? He adapted 3 of her books…)

2. A steady, enjoyable solve here. I thankfully had enough of the letters for Du Maurier and the anagram of STAIR, which was enough for Google to point me in the right direction for the quote (though missing one A).

3. A challenging puzzle, which I gave up on at one point as I could not get all (or enough) of the letters needed for the hint that would hopefully identify the Lord (having already found the Lady). On picking up the puzzle again a couple of days later I managed to get another pair of letters for the hint and ended up with FRA_CBAC_N, which was fortunately sufficient to suggest Francis Bacon. I found the link between Bacon and Daphne du Maurier in Wikipedia and then the required quotation mentioning the ‘winding stair’ (explaining the letters AIRST) in my ODQ.

   My missing ‘N,O’ pair of letters in ‘FRANCBACON’ came from that mischievous clue at 36 across. To correct the misprint one had to change the word ‘in’ to ‘io’, transforming a readable surface into a nonsensical one, but the amended clue did of course serve up the correct answer TOGED. (There was an unwritten rule at work here, I believe, whereby corrections to misprints must leave real words but are allowed to damage a clue’s surface beyond repair!)

   I admired the whole thematic design of this puzzle (beautifully constructed, as you say, Hihoba). The 38-letter winding stair was impressive, the first 36 letters of which I noted were in symmetry.

   Many thanks to Ifor for a real tour de force, and to Hihoba for the blog.

4. All thanks to Ifor (brilliant as ever) and Hihoba. A very tough one which for some while I expected not to finish. Even with the grid filled and Daphne Du Maurier visible, some of the 5-letter misprints/corrections remained inscrutable here (it didn’t help that I had “cursed” in 30D becoming “curbed” rather than “nursed”), and I got fixated on ART IS rather than STAIR as a likely quotation kernel. (You can imagine the sort of thing: someone’s art is corrupt, bad, rubbish, misshapen etc ad nauseam.) But eventually tried STAIR in ODQ and got straight there, though it took some further time to sort out those misprints.

   My eventual rationalization of the cryptic suggestion was FRANC [=/IS] BACON as with Herb at @1.

5. Well, I filled the grid so can take some pride in that achievement! I made the same mistake as Hihoba in assuming that INF were the extra letters in 10a. At the point that I gave up, I had DPHDUAUR, but of course could not make the leap to identify the Lady. A really challenging puzzle and congratulations to those who persevered and finished it.

   Now to tackle the equally daunting puzzle by Ifor in this month’s Magpie. I think that I’ve guessed the theme from the title and shape of the grid, but I may well be wrong!

6. A difficult but brilliantly conceived and constructed crossword, which went on giving. Like David Langford I slowed myself down by having “curbed” rather than “nursed”, and also for some reason having “decoying” rather than “decaying”. But it all fell into place eventually, most satisfyingly, and was educational too. I hadn’t realised Bacon was so closely associated with (to me, nearby) St Albans. A gold medal to Ifor and many thanks to Hihoba.

7. Add me to the “curbed” roll. It gave me the unhelpful “cob” (= male swan = cock, to follow a synonym of “hitch”? Nope.) “Inbringing” took even longer though.

8. Indeed, very hard but a very satisfying solve on Tuesday night!

   For 9D I thought “material for” was meant as “important for” ie a material contribution / a lead contribution.

9. I wasn’t sure how the cryptic suggestion worked, and assumed that FRANC can be abbreviated to F, thus F BACON etc. I was never convinced and Herb’s suggestion is far more plausible.

   The ladies set the bar high last month, and Ifor stepped up to the challenge admirably. Great puzzle, as ever from him.

10. I agree with the praise (I can’t recall finishing a puzzle with so much recourse to Chambers Word Wizard – normally, I’d give up, but this one gripped me somehow): v difficult; v satisfying. I liked the method of generating Daphne’s letters, but there must be something counter-intuitive about it, because I made a dreadful hash of it, before exposing it to a properly rigorous process. Often I struggle to find hidden messages; it was great that this one almost announced its likely position.

    Thanks to Ifor & Hihoba

11. As always, my grateful thanks to blogger and commenters. I’ll try to address the various issues raised.

    My intention was indeed “FRANC is BACON”

    I agree that in 9d lead = material would be weak (in fact no editor would allow it) but it’s actually “material for came”, cames being the lead strips used in stained-glass windows and the like.

    Alan – I don’t know about an “unwritten rule”, but it’s certainly my philosophy that while a gimmicked clue must start with a decent surface, once modified it becomes a set of coded instructions wherein only the rules of cryptic (as opposed to conventional) grammar need be obeyed. It’s the poorest clue in the puzzle nonetheless, but the best I could do confronted with a precise definition and very few o/n misprint pairs to work with.

    As to 30d and “curbed”, I can only apologise; it’s unfairly misleading. Had I seen that as a possible reading I’d have changed the clue.

    And finally AIERY and AERIE were of course driven by the exigencies of filling the grid. Fortunately they admit of two somewhat different definitions, as used.

    One snippet about Lady Browning – the story goes that she was responsible for the choice of maroon for the paras’ berets.

12. A tricky, but as ever enjoyable, puzzle from Ifor. I also initially took the inf of infringed as extras. When it dawned on me that ‘airts’ were the repeating extras, and coupled with Francis Bacon, I spent quite some time looking for “art is” quotes from the wrong FB…

    If only I’d ran a Google search for DDM and FB earlier….

    Lovely puzzle from Ifor and a very impressive stairway.

    Thanks to Ifor and Hihoba for the entertainment

13. My thanks to Ifor for clarifying “material for came” – I confess to never having heard of came in this context and didn’t think to look it up. I also went along the curSed/curBed dead end – as you can see in the fifth paragraph above. The potential ambiguity didn’t worry me – it just seemed another level of trickery to unravel. I now understand the FRANC is BACON cryptic indication, but am still not keen!! Still a great puzzle Ifor.

14. Oh thanks Ifor for the FRANC is BACON parsing! (I was imagining that his friends just called him Franc…)

15. Hi – I should have said how much I enjoyed the blog. Having a solver’s thought processes adds a lot to the exposition; I’m sure others feel the same. Many thanks.

16. Thanks Ifor

    It’s only seeing the animation above (thanks Hi) that I fully appreciate the construction of the staircase. I had just sketched a rather wobbly single line moving through the appropriate cells, which I now see has done Ifor a disservice.

    I was stumped by the majority of the misprints but managed to get there, eventually, through googling Daphne du Maurier and various combinations of ASTIR.

17. A lovely puzzle, and grid completed, but not all clues fully parsed to my satisfaction. Despite getting as far as DAPHNE DU MAUR-ER, I was unable to parse the wonderfully clued 9 down (Material for came – see Ifor #11), and I hit a brick wall in terms of the endgame. I have to chalk this one down as another ‘Did not finish’. The endgame was, for me at least, most definitely ‘A Bridge Too Far’.

18. Didn’t get up the winding stair without help. Was missing one of the jumbles (19a) and two of the misprints, one of which caused by the INF in 10a instead of F/B. And the only Lord that I found in connection with Daphne du Maurier was Mountbatten …
    But I did get “came” in 9d, tho’ not much of a consolation.

19. This was an enjoyable and often challenging solve till I got stuck about 2/3 through completing the grid, despite returning to it a few times. So a bridge too far for this solver too – I hadn’t worked out enough letters/extra words to get anywhere with the theme, which I suspect would have eluded me anyway, especially as I failed to parse many answers, and I did find the preamble dauntingly complicated. I’m writing this so that other DNFers take solace as they are not alone! Thanks to blogger and setter – the puzzle still gave me a lot of enjoyment.

20. Amateur – I really appreciate your final comment; likewise MSHAH@17’s positive thoughts. There are other Ifor puzzles in the editor’s in-tray, so I’m hopeful of being able to provide you both with a more satisfying completed solve at some point.

21. Thank you Ifor – I’ll keep trying!

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