21 comments on “Inquisitor 1719: Whowasdun by Charybdis”

1. A neat puzzle, and sadly another DNF recorded for me, as however hard I tried I couldn’t manage to complete the three letters dropping to leave GLADYS to be highlighted.

   It took me ages to deduce that it had to be the final letters in each across clue that were dropped, I had assumed that it could be any of the letters, and that they would spell out a phrase, or that two letters were to be entered into a singe cell, and that together they would spell a phrase. With the final page of the book (in the story) missing, it makes a lot of sense.

   So as you can probably imagine, I didn’t appreciate the error in word length for 39A – as it looked like there was one across clue that could be entered complete – but AFEARD jumped out and hit me – so that was a false lead. This sort of thing really annoys me. I was also unable to parse 17D, but it all makes sense now, so thanks to kenmac. I’m not quite sure why Charybdis felt the need for a solidus in the clue for 38A, when a space would suffice, and strategem in 29A … isn’t it stratagem? I couldn’t find the alternative spelling in Chambers.

   A fun Inquisitor, but a few gripes and niggles left me feeling a little disappointed … but perhaps that’s just because I couldn’t complete it all.

   Thanks, as always, go out to both blogger and setter. Keep up the great work.

2. A nice entry – it didn’t take too long to see that the last letters were getting lost (but I had no idea they spelt out the name of the book, that’s very good). Once Hancock became the likely answer for 35 across, the internet did the rest. I found the lady, but had no idea how to make her fall backwards, or which cells to vacate.
   Thanks to Charybdis and kenmac.

3. It was an unusual preamble, including that sentence with DOES in capitals, and as soon as I started on the clues I found that all the Across answers were too long for their entries.

   It soon became clear that it was always the last letter of the Across answers that got cut off, and, working down from the top, I collected those letters. (One is often instructed to do so, but not this time!) By the time I got LADYDONTF a phrase seemed to be emerging, and a little later I tried a search and got the book and film title.

   The thematic items in the grid were straightforward enough to find, but it took a bit more observation to see how to represent the lady’s falling down, revealing GLADYS as the possible name. A satisfying finish.

   Like Me_sat @1, I wondered about the solidus in 38a and the spelling ‘strategem’ in 29a. I had forgotten about the word length error in 39a, but that was another little issue that I noticed at the time. Apart from these quibbles, I very much enjoyed both the thematic design and the clues.

   Thanks to Charybdis and kenmac.

4. Much enjoyed, with hearty thanks to Charybdis and kenmac. I remembered the Hancock episode as soon as it was clear what the missing last letters were spelling. Happily I have a book of selected scripts including The Missing Page [though not my favourite, The Bowmans], and found Johnny Oxford there: had totally forgotten that name. Of course I hoped the lady would be in there somewhere too, but Freda and Jocelyn — the only ones I could see — had the wrong number of letters. As noted at @3 it was easy enough to find the LADY in the diagonal, but working out the correct way to make her fall backwards eluded me for quite a while. Very nice.

   I missed the word length error entirely. Oops.

5. Well I noticed that the last letters in the across clues had to be put somewhere but I noticed LADY diagonally and somehow had a fixation with Chandler and MARLOW(E) and found LADY IN THE LAKE which seemed like a ripping yarn.
   But it soon became apparent that MARLOW clashed with a couple of down clues and it was a long trip down Memory Lane- I vaguely remembered Johhny Oxford , The Missing Page and LADY DONT FALL BACKWARDS
   One of the advantages of being an elderly rookie on these is that I discovered the episode and was rewarded by Hancock’s charades of the plot while everyone is shhh ing in the library -and Gladys does get mentioned if you listen hard.
   Skilful solvers would have spotted the substitution immediately but for this solver it was nice to be reminded of how great Hancock was
   So many thanks to him, Galton and Simpson ,Charybdis and kenmac

6. No matter how I try I cannot see how what you’ve done with the L the A and the D in any way amount to lady falling backwards’. The letters certainly fall. But backwards? Come again?

7. A very fast grid fill, followed by 24-hours trying to work out how I could make letters from LADY fall to produce the name. In retrospect, I wonder if a lot of this was due to the same issue Bingy has noted @6 above, as I certainly spent a lot of time toppling the letters backwards, trying to work out where they would fall.

8. First time DNF in a while for me, and left slightly frustrated by the whole experience. Stupidly, I didn’t think to use the last letters, and as I was missing a couple of entries I wasn’t sure whether 35a was Hancock or Hatchet.

   Nonetheless I found the Lady, and Johnny Oxford seemed an obvious option for the detective, but no amount of Googling of Lady, Hancock, Johnny Oxford or “missing” got me any further. (I did find Johnny Oxford the magician though.) Hence abandonment in frustration after many fruitless hours.

   Thank you nonetheless for the enjoyable first part of the puzzle!

9. Ok i get it now

10. Lovely puzzle, which prompted me to search out the Hancock’s Half Hour episode (which is true comic genius). I didn’t notice the enumeration error and made decent progress through the grid fill, identification of the theme and understanding the thematic requirements – only to be held up at the final stage. I’d worked out that LADY had to swivel on one of its letters and that the name must contain those letters, which meant it almost certainly had to be Gladys. Then it took me longer to find her than I’d spent on the rest of the puzzle. For some reason I was convinced she’d end up on a diagonal.

    Despite the hold-up caused by my lack of understanding of basic English words like “fall” and “backwards” I thought this was terrific. One of Charybdis’s finest, and he’s set some corkers in the past.

11. Glad you’re better, ken, though neither you nor Charybdis (or maybe typesetter) can spell “stratagem”. And you’ve written NANCOCK for the unclued entry.
    Still, a good puzzle, so thanks to Charybdis for that, and to kenmac for the blog.

12. H___G____ @11
    Not me, guv. Simple cut ‘n paste on my part.
    HANCOCK – fixed

13. I’m another that really struggled with what to do with the LADY, and convinced myself that the word would need to be ‘flipped’ somehow so that it would remain in a diagonal, but reading backwards. For a long time I couldn’t see how the resolution could be classed as ‘falling backwards’, or even why the step of creating a ‘possible name’ was required. On further reflection, however, it does make sense. Certainly a fun solve despite being frustrated by the endgame.

    (and I’d also entirely missed that the last letters spelled a message, doh!).

14. k…m… @12: I was referring to “staregem” in the wordplay for 29d (or was that deliberate?)

15. Interesting about the enumeration error in 39a — I see that the paper indeed published (5) but somehow when I transcribed it to a doc it became (6) through some unclear magic of clairvoyance. I have no recollection of this “insight”.

    In other news, I thought this was a very enjoyable puzzle with the added benefit of reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Missing_Page

16. Thanks for the blog and the various comments. I proof-solved the puzzle and noticed neither strategem [sic] nor the misnumeration. Ho-hum. My apologies for both. Must try harder! 🙂

17. I enjoyed the puzzle very much. I was a regular Hancock listener, but I have only a very vague memory of this particular episode.

    I wonder if a more accurately worded preamble might have helped those solvers who struggled, or failed completey, to see where to transplant the three letters. The LADY is already falling backwards. All the solver had to do was to give her a final nudge so she toppled completely. As it is, the preamble almost inevitably gets solvers hunting throughout the grid for a potential name of unknown length. I’m not surprised that some felt the endgame was a bit frustrating. It certainly took me a while to see what to do.

18. Probably a fair comment, Andy @17. My thinking was that solvers would be looking for LADY, find ‘her’ leaning backwards and would have her fall over all the way, her foot [Y] remaining in the same place. Which probably makes more sense once you know the answer! 🙂

19. Thanks Charybdis, I loved this one. What’s more it sent me to Youtube to enjoy the genius of Tony Hancock for the first time in many years, as others have also done according to comments above. If anyone else fancies watching “The Missing Page”, listen very carefully when the librarian tells Hancock where the previous borrower of the book lives (no data protection regulations in those days!) and you’ll hear Oil Drum Lane, which is the address Galton and Simpson later gave to Steptoe and Son.

20. Thanks. And that’s a wonderful piece of esoteric info, Terrier. 🙂

21. Happened to do some browsing on this site, I am generally around a 50% Guardian solver. But I have to say, goodness me, do human beings actually manage to solve something so difficult and esoteric as this puzzle? I don’t know whether to admire such talent, or wonder if there’s something wrong in the way your brains are wired. Cheers.

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