Inquisitor 1718: Epitaph by eXternal

17 comments on “Inquisitor 1718: Epitaph by eXternal”

1. This was certainly a meaty puzzle. It was BUGS, ROAD and SECRET that got me into the theme, which was on a subject I didn’t know very well. My last two clashes, FOGHORN and BARNEY, took the longest to work out.

   I had no idea who the ‘person’ could be, but when I looked at the possible letters that could replace the clashes I could see a possible name emerging that is one of the very, very few I have heard of that are associated with any US cartoon series: Mel Blanc. I was lucky that I hit upon that name, not knowing he had such an appropriate and memorable epitaph.

   Even with a complete and evidently correct grid I was still without CAVEMAN among the names and ‘debris’ among the definitions. For completeness, I gave myself the task of running through my lists of names and definitions to match them all and thereby identify the two missing items. (Like Hihoba, I realised I did not have to do this, but it was satisfying to leave no loose ends.)

   The clues were excellent. I actually enjoyed solving the two that had ponderous, ‘unhelpful’ definitions that could not be faulted, simply because they were taken verbatim from their entries in Chambers: ‘not invidiously superior’ for HUMAN and ‘unregenerate human nature’ for ADAM.

   Thanks to eXternal and Hihoba.

2. Superb puzzle. So much going on but some wonderful clues and a lovely reveal at the end. Probably my favourite of the year so far

3. I enjoyed this one a lot – the theme took me right back to my childhood. So many chuckles from me each time that I discovered one of the eight cartoon creations. Aaaah, happy memories. A brilliantly executed endgame I thought, leaving real words (allowing for the gap), and I can’t help but wonder just how many hours must it take the setters to construct these puzzles!

   A finish from me again this week, with all clues solved and parsed to my satisfaction. My only query is with two of the definitions, as I had SIMPLETON with DAFFY, and NARCISSUS with BUNNY (as I seemed to recall narcissi sometimes being referred to as bunnies).

   As per Alan B @1 – I also appreciated the precise Chambers definitions for HUMAN and ADAM. That’s a nice touch – and always appreciated by me. It let’s you know for certain that you’re on the right track.

   Thanks, as always, to both setter and blogger.

4. A tough puzzle, but very satisfying to finish, and a nominee here for my end of year list. Working out what combinations of letters would resolve the clashes was straightforward enough, but none of the possibilities meant anything to me so I was left to trying to work out what the epitaph would be to complete. Thankfully, THATS leapt out from the first few columns… Hopefully said epitaph doesn’t mean we’ll be seeing less of eXternal!

5. Many thanks for blog HH let alone the puzzle.
   My first sorted clash was DAFFY but not really enough to go on.
   Then BUGS and a couple of “phone a friend”s and it started to makes some sense and I remembered the man of a 100 voices
   What a fantastic tribute!
   And thanks eXternal

6. Great fun — all thanks to eXternal and Hihoba. My first two clashes BUGS and ROAD brought on a “Wouldn’t it be nice if … but surely not?” moment, and then came DAFFY and PORKY. At this point I foolishly assumed they’d all be Looney Tunes characters, and having looked them up spent some time trying to make the BAR in REBARS the opening of BARNYARD (DAWG): all the needed letters were in the 44A clue, but perhaps an accidental rather than a deliberate red herring. Eventually it dawned on me that MEL BLANC also worked for Hanna-Barbera and voiced BARNEY (RUBBLE).

   Another distraction was the early discovery that Chuck Jones of Looney Tunes fame was given an “epitaph” by Ray BRADBURY, whose eight-letter surname raised further frustrated hopes:

   [In his autobiography, Jones wrote, “Perhaps the most accurate remark about me was uttered by Ray Bradbury at his 55th birthday party. In answer to the usual question: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ Ray replied: ‘I want to be 14 years old like Chuck Jones.’ Perhaps this will be my most apt possible epitaph.”]

7. David Langford @6, Thank you for sharing the Ray Bradbury quote. What a wonderful thing to say! I remember being thrilled in my teens by golden age Science Fiction and being enthralled by the idea of “The Illustrated Man”. My love of SciFi has continued into old age – perhaps tempered slightly. I re-read the Asimov Foundation trilogy recently. It seemed very dated, though the ideas (Psychohistory etc) still hold up!

8. I hought this had all the ingredients that make for a really enjoyable puzzle: good clues, a stack of thematic stuff, and an endgame that required a bit of thought, but not too much Internet searching. Funnily enough the cartoon theme did occur to me when I got DAFFY, but I dropped that idea as others words from clashes emerged since I didn’t recognize anything apart from BUGS. I did start to work on the top row, getting as far as THAT, but I also entered all the possible letters to resolve each clash into TEA, which gave me MEL BLANC (which meant nothing to me).
   Superb.

9. Like Hihoba, I first found Daffy and Bugs – and so, like David Langford @6, I assumed we were entirely in Looney Tunes World, an assumption I failed to drop even after finding Mel B (on a crosswordy website). Still, great puzzle, and how nice to celebrate the genius of Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones…

10. Greatly enjoyed. Hihoba, I’m fairly sure External is two fellows, not one.

11. Tony Edwards @10: are you thinking of eXtent = eXternal + Serpent?

12. Sorry, my mistake, I was thinking of another setter beeginning with E.

13. Yes, I realised immediately. Thanks for pointing it out.

14. Superb puzzle !

    So much going on. I’d not encountered Foghorn Leghorn before so that held me up a little. As one or two others have mentioned, this will likely be on my favourite list come the end of the year. Bravo eXternal for the superb puzzle and my thanks to Hihoba as ever for the blog

15. Many layers, and what a grid-construction! I guessed THAT’S ALL FOLKS very early, after seeing BUGS (Bunny) and DAFFY (Duck). A spot of bother digging out the non-Looney Tunes characters (like two others, @6 & @9), and I’d never heard of MEL BLANC – had to trawl through possible resolutions of the clashes to find something that made sense. Finding the final superfluous single word took ages – largely owing to incorrectly parsing one clue and so was looking for the wrong association. Thanks to Hihoba for putting me right on that. And as M_s_h_a_h says @3, how long must it take to produce a grid like this? Thanks eXternal.

16. Superb really is the word for this! I am often guilty of leaving a few loose ends once all the key elements have been solved, but in this case I didn’t stop until I had an explanation for every little bit. That must be a sign of a good puzzle. Thanks to all.

17. I am currently staying with friends and almost missed this as my crossword time is greatly reduced. Thankfully, Andy above recommended that I make time for it. Fun theme, superb grid and terrific clues. Wonderful!

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