Inquisitor 1732: Appropriate by Lato

29 comments on “Inquisitor 1732: Appropriate by Lato”

1. ‘…what’s the difference between a “clue answer” and simply an “answer“ ‘: of the two abbreviations, EFTA is a clue answer; but FDR is merely an answer.

2. My take is that 56 is DONald Trump and he ends up in JAIL but this seems to be an uncharacteristic political statement.

   Why is it 56? I don’t know. All the others appear at their appropriate presidential numbers but none of us can know or even have a chance of finding out who will be prez in 40-80 years time.

   Not Lato’s best – sorry to say. ?

3. A lovely puzzle but for me somewhat spoilt by the final bit: “Solvers agreeing with this should highlight eight contiguous cells including some already silvered”

   I spent forever trying to figure this out and eventually settled on the letters for “No Repeat” starting from 47a (the next president) and going west and south, but knew that was unlikely to be the answer.

   Your highlighted solution (though not explained in the blog) is to put “Don” in JA-IL which I’m guessing was the setter’s intention, but I’d love to know how many others actually got that – perhaps it was just me…

   I also thought the dig at Trump was slightly cheap in what was otherwise a beautifully constructed puzzle.

4. Regarding the placement for DON, given the instruction was “all appropriately placed, as arguably is the ninth, in short, though differently from the others”, I assumed he was placed at the bottom of the puzzle because he was the worst one (hence “appropriate differently”). 56 just happened to be the last entry.

5. Normality resumed after last week, all answers in and parsed OK. Endgame was a little vague – it wasn’t clear just what we were looking for (the title offering next to no help). Noted the possibility of OBAMA and BIDEN being hidden in AMOEBA and IN DEBT, imagined PRESIDENT as the theme word, suddenly there they were, all nine of ‘em. Bit of a sly dig aimed at the latest ex-Officio chap right at the very finish … JAIL down in the SW corner was easy to spot. Job done. Moderate degree of difficulty to start 2022, shading ‘if you share my views’ seemed to me to be a bit off. The rubric should dictate what you have to do, not suggest what you might wish to do, should you happen to be of the same persuasion as the setter.

   Overall, a fun start to the Inquisitorial year, but like others (blogger and several other commenters above), I felt that the puzzle was spoiled a little by the unnecessary cheap dig at the finale together with optional shading, which for me is a definite no-no. Many thanks, as always, to both setter and blogger.

6. I enjoyed this. It was a good set of clues, giving me a sense of satisfaction when the grid was filled even before I got a whiff of the theme. I had a couple of missing letters in the message, obscuring the last word (THEMEWORD), but that was soon sorted.

   The shaded entry INDEBT got me into the theme, Biden being formed after the T is omitted. Adams and Obama quickly followed. The significance of the ‘placement’ of these names came to me a bit later – a clever and well-executed device, and I’m impressed that it was possible to do this while also achieving symmetry.

   Having collected eight letters from the first eight names, it was obvious that P had be the last, to make PRESIDENT, and that inevitably made Don the name to be derived from POND. It took me ages to see what now looks obvious: Don (as POND) is in JAIL. (Obviously a kind of ‘placement’ for a different reason from the other Presidents here, the clue number 56 being irrelevant.)

   Logically, according to the preamble, it is possible to disagree with Don’s placement, and therefore one should be free not to highlight anything, as pointed out already.

   Thanks to Lato for what I thought was an excellent puzzle, despite the somewhat vague and cryptic advice in the preamble. And thanks to HolyGhost for the blog.

7. TonyG @1: I think someone is confusing “answer” and “entry” here.

8. The ending spoilt the whole thing. Also, Trump has never been known as “Don” to my knowledge.
   Editorialising in crosswords is, or should be, a no-no.

9. Tony @8
   I just treated Don (from POND) as a deliberate rogue entry (there is no known 56th President), and we can make of it what we will. The not very subtle point being made actually helped me to find that last piece of the puzzle.

10. I’m another who felt the final stage spoiled an otherwise excellent crossword. I am no fan of Trump but I don’t think endgames based on political opinion are entirely fair, even it’s just intended as a bit of fun. I couldn’t see any significance to the number 56.

11. Enjoyed, in particular the hidden presidents in the unclued entries. The last and very least entry was a bit odd, but could be nobody else, and the highlighting amused when eventually spotted.

12. I read the rubric as saying that eight are correctly placed (i.e. as per their ‘presidential numbers’), whereas one is not (44 = Obama, 46 = Biden, so Trump should be at 45, but he’s not, he’s at 56 which is wrong), but the rubric also states that arguably he is too, in short, but in a different way to the rest, i.e. because he’s in between ‘JA and IL’. I took the deliberately included (and otherwise needless) phrase ‘in short’ to mean that Donald was written in the shortened form, as Don. Not sure if that helps anybody, or if it’s even correct, just my reading of things.

13. Obama and Biden were my way in, but I must admit, as I frequently forget to reread the rubric, that I failed to notice the correlation between presidents and their numbers, so failed to notice why Don was in the wrong (or right) place. But Trump is not ‘Don’ in the way Lincoln and Roosevelt are Abe and FDR, so it felt it already felt a little off. I also thought, given how much silver was at the top left, the clues for 4, 5 and 6 down might have been a bit gentler.

    All the same, a really enjoyable challenge, many thanks to Lato and HG.

14. Another here who was distinctly underwhelmed by the endgame. It’s fine if you’re lucky enough to spot these things but it’s all a bit I Spy-ish.

15. I took the 8 cells to be highlighted as TAKE ARMS…(starting col.6 row 2). The jail thing doesn’t seem to fit in with the idea suggested that Trump will stand again and become POTUS in 2024.

16. Thanks to HG for the blog and to others who commented.

    In response to the points raised, some of which Me_sat_here_at_home has explained:

    Trump wasn’t known as Don – true, which was why ‘in short’ was mentioned in the preamble. Donald wouldn’t fit in.

    The rubric should dictate rather than suggest – fair enough if this was a Prize puzzle but it wasn’t. It makes no difference whether you highlight or not. You won’t be sending it anywhere.

    A cheap jibe at Trump – not sure that’s possible. We are talking about somebody who incited a mob to storm the Capitol, seemingly looking for Mike Pence to hang as a traitor. Five people died as a result of this.

    I’m really surprised some solvers didn’t know what to highlight. The rubric did point to the highlighting relating to the entry not appropriately placed in the same way as the others. As Alan B rightly said, it’s not even very subtle! And It’s hardly a left field opinion the man should be in jail – it’s a commonly expressed viewpoint whether you agree with it or not.

    Thanks for reading this anyway.

17. Lato @ 16 : Thanks for the clarification, much appreciated – and glad that I could actually be of some help to my fellow commenters – I wasn’t sure whether I was making any sense or not! I wouldn’t want you to think that my comments meant that your puzzle wasn’t appreciated, as it most definitely was, it was actually a lot of fun to solve. I can only imagine just how difficult it must have been to craft (and I use the word craft deliberately, as an Inquisitor is a bit of a work of art, a joy to experience – and from the comments I can see that others agree with me). I personally really liked the way that the eight presidents were located at their ‘presidential numbers’, that was very clever indeed. Nicely done. It was just the very final piece that left me a little cold. I’m not a citizen of the USA, and so have absolutely no say in their elections (I just get what I’m given). I appreciate that your comment may have been made in jest, I just felt it a little inappropriate, that’s all. I also appreciate the fact that there are currently no prizes on offer, however if there were, then with optional shading it would be impossible to differentiate between somebody that didn’t actually fully complete the puzzle (because they couldn’t deduce what to shade) and somebody that just didn’t agree with your opinion. To me at least, that fact feels a little unsatisfactory.

    Anyway, keep up the excellent work, Lato. Your efforts really are very much appreciated.

18. Me_sat_here_at_home,

    Thanks for the kind words. You’re right – it was meant as a joke really. Don’t think I’d have made the highlighting optional had it been a Prize puzzle.
    Talking of which, let’s hope the prizes resume before too long.

19. Me no likey for similar reasons that others have expressed. Felt like there were several circles made into squares. The opposite of a neat endgame. I shall call such puzzles ‘japondils’ in future.

20. Hi Lato, please don’t be disheartened. It was still very fun to solve and beautifully constructed!

    Political discussions aside, the one thing I would push back on is the clarity of the highlighting request. Your preamble read: “Solvers agreeing with this should highlight eight contiguous cells including some already silvered” – which did not specify that the silvered cells would be POND nor how the cells would be contiguous (in a line, a circle, a block of 2×4…?) Hence I spent a long while hunting for something to highlight, with not much to go on. A bit unlucky perhaps this time.

    Of course, who actually cares about the highlight, but some of us are very keen to fully complete the Inquisitor every week 🙂

21. I doubt whether anyone here disagrees with Lato about Trump. But that is not the point, it’s still editorialising and shouldn’t be allowed.

22. Tony@21,

    Why not?

23. I agree with Arnold @20 that this was great to solve and splendidly put together. Many thanks indeed to Lato. While I fully agree with the implied view of Trump, I’m inclined to think it is wiser not to include possibly contentious views in the instructions of an openly available crossword. It might have been more subtle to leave the grid as it is but not draw attention to the bottom line: I’m sure someone would have spotted the Nina “Don in jail” and we could have speculated whether it was deliberate or supernatural.

24. Lato@ 22.
    It may be just my opinion, but I should have thought most editors, except The Grauniad’s, would frown on it.
    There was a Magpie puzzle last year where the preamble said ” 8 down is an abomination”, which it was in my view: the name given to an atom bomb.
    But most of the solvers thought it poor form to editorialise in a puzzle.
    I wouldn’t want crossword sites to become like Twitter, but you are entitled to your view and I respect that.

25. Cheers, Tony. Thanks for replying.

    Grauniad and Indy probably. Think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this.

26. That’s fine, I don’t wish to detract from the pleasure of the puzzle. It was splendidly clued and the names cleverly placed.
    I should have said this before.

27. Thanks, Tony.

28. I found FRAUD and tried in vain to find three contiguous letters to complete something meaningful. Otherwise enjoyable.

29. I didn’t get the jail thing and highlighted “Ill-fated” (well, “fated ill” I guess). I’m not saying it works but there it is. I also toyed with “Arse fate”. It was late.

    Up to then I’d been loving it. It is extremely clever.

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