This week we are faced with a puzzle by Nimrod, in the form of a carte blanche, with an asymmetric hole of undefined size in the middle of the completed grid. Well, this should be a doddle then!
The preamble was quite long and stated:
"A hole around the centre of the asymmetrical grid has been filled in such a way that leaves no space for letters, other than the one that represents a helpful feature in the barred-off cell. Across answers are entered left to right in other spaces left vacant; each down answer runs without interruption; the insertion of bars is optional. The 27 letters that trace the clockwise edge of the hole thus describing its filler are ignored in the wordplay of their clues. Solvers should change the appearance of the letter in the barred-off cell homophonically and one other letter reflectively, then highlight the 12 cells that identify the hole’s location.
Solvers of an artistic bent may wish to add colour and detail to the filler."
The one comfort I drew from the preamble was that down answers would be entered without any spaces between the letters. It wasn’t entirely clear to me, even after reading the preamble, how across answers would be entered. My policy when I don’t understand the preamble fully at the start is just to try and solve some clues and see how things might fit together.
Things started well with both answers in the first row falling quickly – RABBI and TSUNAMI. The down entry in column 13 – EARTH SCIENCE fell quickly also where it was clear that entries don’t always begin in the first cell of a column (and presumably rows also). I also got column 2 and the column 12 first clue early – ASSENTS and I GUESS NOT– along with the first entry in row 4 – HERA. Unfortunately the wordplay for all of these used all of the letters in the entries, so I wasn’t learning anything about the hole or the unclued letters around the edge of the hole.
There was then quite a long pause as I tried to solve a few more clues. The first breakthrough was solving CHIANTI and TITRATE in rows 9 and 10 and identifying some letters missing from the wordplay.
Next to fall were EDGIER, INANEST, RAGEE, ARCTOID, DIANA and BEARISH such that a vague hole and a phrase around the hole were beginning to appear. The final breakthrough was solving DETERGING in row 11 and SEWERAGE in row 2 even if I wasn’t sure how to enter them at that stage.. This was enough to see words like EDGE, BEARING and TIGHT in the phrase. There was also the potential for BEAR IN GREAT in the message.
With a bit of research, the message became clear as A WEDGED BEAR IN GREAT TIGHTNESS (27 letters) which is taken from a short story by A A Milne entitled ‘Pooh Goes Visiting and Pooh and Piglet Nearly Catch a Woozle’ In the story Pooh gets stuck in Rabbit’s Hole and has to slim before he can get out.
After deducing the full text of the phrase, there was still a bit of work involved in getting the position of all the letters right. The graphic below shows my interpretation of where the letters go. I have no artistic talent whatsoever and have based my rather poor drawing on a screen shot from an animated film showing Pooh’s predicament. The link to the screen shot is Pooh animation screenshot;
As part of the drawing I changed the I in barred -off cell to represent an eye (a homophone of I)
Perhaps I should have tried to reflect a more original picture as shown here
Even with the colouring there were still things to do to complete the endgame. The preamble asked us to change one letter reflectively. Here I reckon I was faced with two choices. The one I chose was to reflect the letter S in TSUNAMI to imitate the spelling of RABBIT‘S in the first picture below. This allowed me to represent
I also considered reflecting the W in row 2 column 5 about its vertical axis to from a V (or U), in rows two and three to generate HOVSE and leave the normal S in RABBIT’S but in the end I didn’t. The published solution on Saturday will show us whether I was right.
The animation below shows the grid as it develops from the original solve, through the introduction of the stuck Winnie-the-Pooh, the reflection of the S and the highlighting of RABBIT’S HOWSE.
The title, HOLE, doesn’t need much explanation given the occurrence of the large irregular shaped hole in the grid.
For me this was a difficult challenge that took me a few days to complete. It was worth the effort though. With hindsight, the clues were excellent with some very clever surfaces, although at the time of solving, I was not quite so flattering with some of my comments!
Having worked in Africa for a few years, I thought I was reasonably well briefed on African capitals, but I must admit that GITEGA, the political capital of Burundi, was new to me. I always assumed that Bujumbura was still the capital.
The clarity of definitions in the clues was important as it is quite difficult deducing wordplay where up to 5 [equivalent to nearly 56% of the word ] letters are omitted.
I am fairly happy with my parsing of most entries, but I am not sure of the parsing of HERA (row 4, entry 1)
Thanks to Nimrod (aka John Henderson, editor of the Inquisitor puzzle series) for the challenge and the [eventual] satisfaction of solving the puzzle and the endgame.
Apologies for any typos, misalignments or other errors in the blog – this one was quite complex to proof read
| No |
Clues for each row and column shown in red followed by Defined entry Wordplay for the letters used Full entry showing letters omitted in the word play |
Letters omitted |
Entry |
| Across | |||
| 1 |
Backsliding legal profession reported by doctor of law (5) RABBI (Jewish expounder or doctor of the law) BAR (legal profession) reversed (backsliding) + BI (sounds like [reported by] BY) RAB< BI Welcomed by suits at work, returning team member waves (8) TSUNAMIS (swiftly travelling sea waves that attain great height, caused by an undersea earthquake or similar disturbance) MAN (team member) reversed (returning) contained in (welcomed by) an anagram of (at work) SUITS TSU (NAM<) IS* |
none
none |
RABBI|TSUNAMIS |
| 2 |
That’s something worth watching! (5, 2 words) AS HOW (that [with noun clause]) or A SHOW (something worth watching) AS HOW could be the wordplay for A SHOW or vice versa AS HOW or A SHOW Waste time standing behind nobleman taking pee (8) SEWERAGE (refuse or waste carried off in drains) PEER (nobleman) excluding (taking) P (pee) + AGE (time) to form EERAGE SEWERAGE |
none
S W |
ASHOW|SEWERAGE |
| 3 |
Squiffy lads took to the big band’s dance floor (7) SALSAED (SALSA is the name given to a type of rhythmic Latin-American big-band music and a dance to that music; took to the big band’s dance floor) Anagram of (squiffy) LADS to form SALD* SALSAED* |
SAE |
_|SALS_A _ED|___ |
| 4 |
Olympian queen fleeced Aries? (4) HERA (HERA is the Queen of the Gods and is the wife and sister of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon) I’m not sure of the wordplay here. I know that HERA was the mother of ARES, but the clue refers to ARIES. It may be that the definition is just Olympian and the word play involves HER for queen (although I can’t see the link) and A for RAM (a RAM identifies the zodiac sign ARIES) with the R and M being removed [fleeced] HERA Level less tense or more tense (6) EDGIER (more anxious; more tense) TIER (level) excluding T (tense [in grammar]) to form IER EDGIER |
none
EDG |
HERA|E___DGIER |
| 5 |
Having entered a thoroughfare that’s extremely characterless (7) INANEST (most characterless) IN (having entered) + A + ST (street; thoroughfare) to form INAST INANEST |
NE |
INAN______EST |
| 6 |
I start to second-guess Scotsman’s moods (4) TIDS (Scottish words for moods) I + S (first letter of [start to] SECOND-GUESS) to form IS TIDS |
T D |
__|T____I__DS|_ |
| 7 |
Fool’s trapped among waste receptacles (7) ASHBINS (waste receptacles) ASS (fool) containing (trapped) IN (among) to form AS (IN) S ASHB(IN)S |
HB |
ASH______BINS |
| 8 |
Cereal grass: where to find cereal seeds raked over (5) RAGEE (a millet [cereal grass] much grown in India, Africa etc.) EAR (part of a cereal plant containing the seeds, especially of corn) reversed (raked over) to form RAE< RAGEE< |
GE |
RAG_____EE|___ |
| 9 |
Red cape (anagram hint) (7) CHIANTI (a dry red wine from Tuscany; red) C (cape) + an anagram of (anagram) HINT to form C HNTI* CHIANTI* |
IA
|
CHI______ANTI |
| 10 |
Perform lab analysis on items initially imported by gallery (7) TITRATE (measure the strength of [a solution] by means of a chemical reaction; perform lab analysis) I (first letter of [initially] ITEMS) contained in (imported by) TATE (reference one of the various TATE galleries of art) to form T (I) ATE T(I)TRATE |
TR |
TIT______RATE |
| 11 |
Study group’s first sterilisation process? (9) DETERGING (cleansing [a wound]; a sterilization process) DEN (study) + G (initial letter of [first] GROUP) to form DENG DETERGING |
TERGI |
_|DET_ERG_ING|_ |
| 12 |
This is engaged for driving, ergo (6, 2 words) IN GEAR (for driving, the vehicle needs to be IN GEAR) INGER (hidden word in [engaged in] DRIVING ERGO) IN GEAR Oil people investing dollars as a gamble (6, 2 words) ON SPEC (as a gamble) OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries; oil people) containing (investing) S (a variant of the symbol $ for dollars) to form O (S) PEC ON (S)PEC |
A
N |
INGEAR|_|ONSPEC |
| 13 |
Daughter shifting retro mahogany blocks slower on landing (13) DRAG-PARACHUTE (small PARACHUTE attached to the rear of an aircraft, which opens on landing to assist deceleration; slower [as a noun?] on landing) CARAP (any tree of the genus Carapa, tropical trees of the mahogany family) reversed (retro) contained in (blocks) an anagram of (shifting) DAUGHTER DRAG (PARAC<) HUTE* |
none |
DRAGPARACHUTE |
| Down | |||
| 1 |
Turner (England’s), Gainsborough and Constable kept from public view? (6) RASHID (reference Adil RASHID, Yorkshire and England spinner [turner] in cricket. If England wasn’t in the clue we could have referenced RASHID Khan, Afghanistan spinner) RAS (Royal Academicians, such as Gainsborough and Constable) + HID (kept from public view) RAS HID What’s discharged to papers as filler (7) ARCTOID (bear-like – the reference is to the nature of the filling of the hole in the grid by the bear Winnie-the-Pooh) ARC (luminous discharge of electricity) + TO + ID (identity] papers) ARC TO ID |
none
none |
RASHID|ARCTOID |
| 2 |
Sanctions any number being crammed into estate (7) ASSENTS (agrees to; sanctions) N (letter frequently used to denote any number in mathematics) contained in (being crammed into) ASSETS (a person’s assets on death can be referred to as his or her estate) ASSE (N) TS |
ASSENTS|______ | |
| 3 |
Capturing hearts, Saudi returns India to Indians (6) BHARAT (Hindi name of the Republic of India; India to Indians) ARAB (Saudi for example) reversed (returns) containing (capturing) H (hearts) to form B (H) ARA< B (H) ARA< T Grand received by each African capital (6) GITEGA (city that is the political capital of the African country of Burundi) G (grand) contained in (received by) EA (each) to form E (G) A GITEGA |
T
GIT |
BHARAT|_|GITEGA |
| 4 |
Rocker left constricted? (5) BOLAN (reference Marc BOLAN [1947-1977] musician, songwriter, perhaps best known as glam rocker with the band T Rex) L contained in (constricted] by BOA (constrictor snake) to form BO (L) A BO (L) A N Sheep that will soon be two for one (3) TEG (sheep in its second year) EG (for example) TEG |
N |
BOLAN|_____|TEG |
| 5 | No entry in this column | No entry | |
| 6 |
Take a fair amount of time (3) ERA (main division of geological time; a fair amount of time) R (recipe [Latin, take]) + A E RA |
E |
__________|ERA |
| 7 |
In abandoning ship, the end for horse marine (3) SEA (as an adjective, marine) SHIP excluding (abandoning) HIP (trendy; in) + E (last letter of [end for] HORSE) SE A Karel’s work an extract from yours? (3) RUR (reference the 1920 science-fiction play R. U. R. [Rossum’s Universal Robots] by the Czech writer Karel Capek) UR (hidden letters in [extract from] YOURS) R UR |
A
R |
SEA|_______|RUR |
| 8 |
Shape to lasso American gazelle (3) GOA (grey-brown gazelle of Tibet) O (shape of a lasso) + A (American) G OA |
G |
__________|GOA |
| 9 |
For survival, require 1-0 (4) NEED (requirement for survival) ONE (1) excluding (-; minus) O (character representing the number 0) NEED |
ED |
NEED|__________ |
| 10 |
‘Ow archaeologist should not scratch soil with it! (3) ARD (primitive type of plough, used to scratch the top layer of soil) ‘ARD (HARD in the same form as ‘ow [how], omitting the H. An archaeologist should not scratch soil hard for fear of damaging any item being uncovered) ARD One sheet’s employed as filler (7) BEARISH (like a bear, such as Winnie-the-Pooh who is filling the hole in the grid; as filler) ESH (hidden letters in [employed] ONE SHEET) BEARISH |
none
BARI |
ARD|___|BEARISH |
| 11 |
Biscuit tin’s contents after damage (5) MARIE (type of plain biscuit, usually thin with decorative indentations) MAR (damage) + I (middle letter of [contents of] TIN) MAR I E Who’s embodied by Corinthian Artemis? (5) DIANA (DIANA, in Roman religion, is the goddess of wild animals and the hunt, identified with the Greek [Corinthian] goddess Artemis. Hence DIANA is a Roman ’embodied by Corinthian Artemis’) IANA (hidden letters in [embodied by] CORINTHIAN ARTEMIS) DIANA |
E
D |
MARIE|DIANA|___ |
| 12 |
Is one’s gut affected? No, presumably (9, 3 words) I GUESS NOT (I don’t think so; no, presumably) Anagram of (affected) IS ONE’S GUT I GUESS NOT* Blocking out bits of sun, great catch! (3) GET (become infected with; catch) GREAT excluding (blocking out) the letters R and A which form RA (Egyptian God of sun) GET |
none
none
|
IGUESSNOT|_|GET |
| 13 |
Studies of e.g. geology, geography or meteorology – strangely, each in secret EARTH SCIENCE (any of the SCIENCEs dealing with the earth, e.g. geography or geology) Anagram of (strangely) EACH IN SECRET EARTH SCIENCE* |
none |
Definitely challenging, but very satisfying to finish. I went straight in with a dot for the eye, which I guessed wasn’t really correct, but as I always intended to have a stab at the final illustration, I wasn’t that concerned. I’m afraid my attempt doesn’t measure up to your very nice example above. 🙂
I found this to be really quite a tough one – it took me quite some time to make any real sense of any the true extent of the hole – even though I had deciphered quite a few of the answers and knew which letters were ignored in the respective clues. I ended with a couple of answers that I was unable to parse to my satisfaction, so thanks to Duncan – all is now clear. Personally, I don’t think that the insertion of bars should have been optional here … doing so actually significantly simplified the task of filling the grid – well, it did for me anyway. I went with reflection of the W, but I think that Duncan’s ending where we reflect the S looks to be more likely to be correct. I’m still not sure that I can visualise the final hole as looking like Winnie the Pooh though.
Sadly, it seems that in the end I ended up with a letter missing in 8A, leaving a hole that was one cell too big … so an incorrect finish recorded by me this week.
I have one little niggle with this puzzle, and that was with the first clue at 2A. As noted above, both A SHOW and AS HOW fit the clue, both possibilities are also two words – I really don’t like it when a clue has two answers, even if the final filled cells are identical.
Thanks, as always, to both blogger and setter.
Duncan, Aries = THE RAM, fleeced = ( T) HERA (M).
Also, I think the I should be altered to a drawing of an eye, as the preamble says alter homophonically.
Tony Edwards @ 3
Thanks – it’s usually quite simple once a parsing is explained. I feel even more silly have taken the A from RAM myself!
Sorry, you have drawn the eye, my mistake.
A long struggle but a satisfying one, and I did get there in the end. All thanks to Nimrod and duncanshiell.
ARCTOID = filler was the answer that made me think of bears and eventually Winnie-the-Pooh. RABBITS HOWSE was a stumbling block because in the actual Sacred Text the sign doesn’t appear in the “Pooh goes visiting” story or chapter, and in the map of the “100 Aker Wood” it’s spelt RABBITS HOUSE with an ordinary S. I had to google Disney images for the W-backwards-S version. Never thought of a reflected W!
It took a long time here too to see the construction of HERA.
I had a big grin on my face after completing this one. The PDM held out right until the end. I was trying to construct all sorts of bear-related stuff: holes in the ice and polar bears, black holes and star constellations etc. I thought the huge number of unused cells in the grid was a risky tactic for a setter, but for me the gamble paid off handsomely.
I also failed to parse HERA. It looks so obvious in retrospect.
Thank you Nimrod & Duncan.
A bit above my pay grade but great stuff and a really good blog
So thanks Dunc and Nimrod
I’ll digest it in full later
Lovely puzzle, which I found WAY more rewarding, more enjoyable and less time-consuming than the Spice monster from the same setter in a recent Listener. I too toyed with mapping one half of the W on to the other to make HOUSE, but the reflected S is a far better bet. I don’t think there’s much doubt about the I in the barred cell becoming an eye.
I didn’t insult Pooh by trying to draw him because my artistic skills make the purveyors of unmade beds look like Rembrandt.
Terrific stuff, thanks Nimrod – and Duncan for a superb blog.
Wonderfully enjoyable crossword, although I blithely “corrected” the W to U, thus disqualifying myself from the champagne/prosecco/chocolates/nothing. (What a sad chronicle of decline that is…) For a long time I had the left-hand side of the quotation one space over to the right, squashing the hole to make a sort of generic teddy bear shape. Matching the correct shape to the Shepard illustration was probably the best PDM of all.
All in all probably my favourite Inquisitor of the year so far. (For the first time I’ve done nearly all of them.)
Herb @ 11
I think the jury may still be out on what the correct interpretation of ‘reflectively’ is.
The original text by A A Milne refers to RABBIT’S HOUSE I think, which means the W is changed to U and the S is left unchanged
The later animated film leaves the W unchanged and reflects the S.
There is then the question of whether changing W to V (to represent U) is a ‘reflection’ or a ‘fold’ The software I used to reflect the S leaves a W unchanged when I apply the reflection tool.
I look forward to seeing what the published solution is.
Nice artwork too.
Herb @11 : You’re taking us all back in time there … if I remember correctly, when in the Independent Magazine, the choice for the winner was between a bottle of champagne and a bottle of Umbrian extra virgin olive oil, wasn’t it? I used to alternate between each of my entries … champagne one week, olive oil the next time that I solved etc. I got the shock of my life one day when I arrived home from work to find that the postman had delivered me a parcel, turned out to be from a quality vintner in South Kensington, bottle of champagne for you, Sir … gratis … courtesy of The Independent!
Without a doubt it was the finest bottle of champagne that I have ever tasted … wonderfully fruity, and with a really beautiful light apple green colour. It was the talk of the (seven roomed) shared house!
Thanks, Herb … for making my day. It’s good to remember the fine times in these dark and difficult ‘virally challenging’ days.
Wow. Firstly, bravo to Duncan on a superb blog, covering every aspect of the puzzle.
For me this was the hardest IQ for ages, maybe since Nimrod’s IQ1431, which had some similarities with gaps between entries.
The bottom of the hole was first to take shape for me but after that it was a very slow but gradual challenge picking away at it over a few days. Not helped by a couple of stupid mistakes in initially identifying and entering wrong letters fir the edge of the hole.
Some tough clues as ever from JH, but of course much to admire. I particularly liked Diana and Chianti. Very good.
I couldn’t parse need, which seems obvious now…
Bug thanks to Nimrod for the workout. I’m expecting this to be in the top level of grading when the year end list appears.
Thanks again Duncan, the blog must have taken ages to put together.