A warm welcome to IN.
Preamble: Every answer in each odd-numbered row must be partially jumbled (usually resulting in a non-word) to show a sequence of names. A three-word phrase must be written under the grid. Its first word comprises the initial letters of relevantly-numbered clues taken in thematic order; its last two derive from a cryptic representation of the puzzle’s title.
It seemed sensible to start on the down clues and on the across clues for entries in even-numbered rows. Moderately successful. Then had a go at the other across clues, those with partially jumbled entries – this felt like a slow and rather laborious process. Finally, having gone through all the clues once, I put the puzzle away for the evening and picked it up the following day.
Row 3 looked as it might have WI|LLIAM spanning the two entries, and similarly EDW|ARD in row 13. Hmm. But at least it appeared that the beginning of the left-hand entries were not jumbled and the same for the ending of those on the right. This gave me more letters for the intersecting down answers and that helped with solving them.
The breakthrough came with QUINN|ELL in row 11 – not a male forename – and led me to revise my earlier thoughts, appending an S to those two other names. Filling in the rest came quite quickly: BEN|NETT, PUL|LIN, DA|WES and DA|VID. So, who were these people? Maybe best explained by Cliff Morgan’s commentary on the Barbarians v New Zealand game from January 27, 1973 …
“Kirkpatrick to Williams. This is great stuff. Phil Bennett covering, chased by Alistair Scown. Brilliant, oh, that’s brilliant. John Williams … Bryan Williams, Pullin, John Dawes. Great dummy. David, Tom David, the half-way line. Brilliant by Quinnell. This is Gareth Edwards. A dramatic start … what a score!”
The players involved in what has been called “the greatest rugby try ever scored” had numbers 10, 15, 2, 13, 6, 8, 9 and the initial letters of those clues spell CARDIFF; as to the cryptic representation of the puzzle’s title, Power = ARM & Discharge = SPARK. And that gives us the phrase below the grid.
Thanks IN – not as fearsome as it first appeared, and an enjoyable solve; moreover, a 50th anniversary to remember and enjoy watching the try once more. Thank you, you can come again.
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay | |
| Across | ||||
| 4 | Pods almost yielded twice over (6) | NEB-[NEB] | BEN(t) (yielded) twice, rev. | |
| 8 | Red Cross might indicate this when taking temperature (4) | [TEN]T | TEN (X, cross) T(emperature) {def.: a deep-red Spanish wine} |
|
| 11 | Sea snail wintered just inside rocks (6) | NERITE | [(w)INTERE(d)]* | |
| 12 | Elliott’s left behind his friend, hidden in extremely tall grass (6) | TOETOE | E(lliott) after ET (his friend) in TOO (extremely) | |
| 13 | Deity with object unspecified in retrospect (3) | T[IW] | W(ith) IT (object unspecified) all< | |
| 14 | Latin master is often receiving dole, wrongly (8) | [MISALL]OT | L(atin) in M(aster) IS A LOT (often) | |
| 16 | Players opposed to everyone else sit all over the place (3) | ITS | [SIT]* | |
| 18 | Our hostelry welcomes this character, after hours as well (3) | RHO | (ou)R HO(stelry), (afte)R HO(urs) | |
| 19 | Devilfish populate tanks (no longer destroyed beforehand) (5) | PO[ULP] | [POPULATE]* ¬ ATE (destroyed) | |
| 20 | Argyll and Bute spells thus ending, take one home away from the sea (8) | [INL]ANDER | IN (Argyl)L AND (But)E R (recipe L, take) | |
| 22 | Company in poverty, having won last source of food for workers (6, 2 words) | ANT COW | CO(mpany) in WANT (poverty) with W(on) last | |
| 24 | Sluggard university sacked – perhaps he craves more time? (6) | LONGER | LOUNGER (sluggard) ¬ U(niversity); also double definition | |
| 25 | Loaded disc that’s felt near individual (8) | TIGHT[WAD] | TIGHT (loaded) WAD (disc of felt) | |
| 27 | Wrinkles might make a mess (5) | [SE]AMS | [A MESS]* | |
| 30 | Eye quite a few trials (6) | PILOTS | PI (Private Investigator, eye) LOTS (quite a few) | |
| 33 | Wartime story the last two of the regular newspapers missed, in retrospect (5) | ILI[AD] | DAILI(es)< (regular newspapers) |
|
| 35 | Measuring device with later date obscured by new prophets (8) | [DIV]INER | DIVIDER (measuring device) with later D(ate) overwritten by N(ew) | |
| 38 | Finished, leaving head freed from anxiety (5) | EASED | (c)EASED (finished) | |
| 40 | Wasted panini almost unwrapped equals litter (9) | PALA[NQUIN] | [PANIN(i) (e)QUAL(s)]* | |
| 41 | Portrait painter left in straight line between features (4) | [LEL]Y | L(eft) in LEY (straight line between features) | |
| 42 | Several deliveries follow from earlier, creating too much employment (7) | OVERUSE | OVER (several deliveries) USE (follow, archaic) | |
| 43 | Powerless to run in rubber trousers (6) | UNABLE | NAB (run in) in ULE (rubber) | |
| 44 | Vacant and keeping people in general lost for words (4) | A[WED] | A(n)D around WE (people in general) | |
| 45 | Fish rises and flops about (8) | [SARD]INES | [RISES AND]* | |
| Down | ||||
| 1 | Opposing captain hit runs (10) | ANTIPATHIC | [CAPTAIN HIT]* | |
| 2 | Recent shot in the arm concerning scientist before now (8) | NEWTONIC | NEW (recent) TONIC (shot in the arm) | |
| 3 | Firm’s credit must be pence (5) | CRISP | CR(edit) IS (must be) P(ence) | |
| 4 | Dumped refuse left with nothing on the top (4) | NILL | L(eft) after NIL (nothing) | |
| 5 | Lewis’s comfortable existence cut short (4) | BEIN | BEIN(g) (existence) | |
| 6 | Iguana perhaps climbing blindly at first over deserted country (6) | BRAZIL | LIZARD< (iguana perhaps) with B(lindly) replacing D(eserted) | |
| 7 | Mineral not absorbing any great quantity of water (6) | NOSEAN | NON (not) around SEA (any great quantity of water) | |
| 8 | Failure of one name that’s tabled at No. 10 (4) | NEON | [ONE N(ame)]* {def.: atomic no. 10} |
|
| 9 | Free the rooms without order for the deserving student living outside college (6) | TOSHER | [THE ROOMS ¬ OM (Order of Merit)]* | |
| 10 | Critical trial reflected strength within player defined by range (8) | TENORIST | TEST (critical trial) around IRON< (strength) | |
| 15 | Abbreviated guide to sacking individuals in bed, useless after exhaustion (4) | LILO | double definition | |
| 17 | What skies may be newly filled with in winter? (5) | SNOWS | SKIES with KIE replaced by NOW (in winter); &lit | |
| 21 | Poet’s injury alongside a real hiding (5) | DEARE | (alongsi)DE A RE(al) | |
| 23 | Inside of church concealed carpet (5) | CHIDE | CE (church) around HID (concealed) | |
| 26 | Peacemaker sadly overdue, ignoring half of Europe violated (4) | DOVE | [OVERDUE]* ¬ [EUR(ope)]* | |
| 28 | Unusually Chinese rank is a number supported by each national (7) | SINAEAN | [IS A N(umber)]* EA(ch) N(ational) | |
| 29 | Small beers ordered – as bosun originally excluded some men on board (7) | MERELLS | [SMALL BEERS]* ¬ AS+B(osun) | |
| 30 | Hamper sometimes storing wrongfully plundered antique (6) | PILLED | PED (hamper, dialect) around ILL (wrongfully) | |
| 31 | Secured, with string holding papers in order now (6) | TIDIED | TIED (secured, with string) around ID (papers) | |
| 32 | Tired facial expression of clue-writer after name’s dropped? (4) | MIEN | MINE (of clue-writer) with N(ame) later | |
| 34 | Farewell, sadly vale, and finally, goodbye (5) | LEAVE | [VALE]* (goodby)E | |
| 36 | Acid primarily doing the job of water (4) | AQUA | A(cid) QUA (doing the job of) | |
| 37 | Duty paid for by i? (4) | ONUS | ON US (paid for by i) | |
| 39 | Colours picked up in stamps (4) | DYES | homophone DIES (stamps) | |
| 40 | Concealing nothing, secretary grasses (3) | POA | PA (secretary) around O (nothing) | |
A fine, and tricky, puzzle. It took me a long time to get the theme. I guessed a Welsh connection from the names that I had identified and the possibility of rugby players rang a bell (particularly Quinnell) but needed some reading to confirm. The use of shirt numbers was a lovely touch.
Thanks IN… an Ifor/Nimrod combo?
Needed much help but now i have bookmarked the whole game.
WHAT A TRY-WHAT A GAME!
Thanks IN and HG
A tough solve, not helped by my missing the “partial” nature of the anagrams and hence wondering how I should deal with 2 letters going into 2 unchecked boxes.
But got there eventually via Quinnell and Edwards. I don’t care much for rugby but it was fun to read the story and listen to the commentary – and the use of shirt numbers was indeed a nice touch.
Took me a while to get the phrase, mostly because I was looking for an expression of some sort from the commentary (‘Cardiff crowd explodes’, say) as opposed to the venue.
I assume Power Discharge was not only there to complete the phrase, but also a cryptic reference to the Theme, being a powerful try?
Yet another variation on manipulating one’s answers (or some of them) to make the grid entries! The idea of ‘partially jumbling’ some answers was a curious one, but it caused no difficulty, and I adopted the practice of entering the relevant Across entries in pencil and then modifying them as and when letters were fixed in their places by Down entries.
The grid took quite a long time to fill, mainly because (1) there seemed to be quite a lot of unfamiliar words and meanings to deal with and (2) some of the clues to the modified Across entries were particularly challenging. When the grid was nearly half full I noticed that the possible names EDWARD (or EDWARDS) and QUINNELL had formed themselves, followed soon after by WILLIAM (or WILLIAMS). I fortuitously latched on to the two typically Welsh names (Edwards and Williams), and even dared to think this might be a rugby connection (with Gareth and JPR respectively), and when I looked online for those names and Quinnell I found more than one reference to the 50th anniversary of a notable rugby feat. I never followed rugby enough to know about the ‘greatest try ever’ involving the ‘magnificent seven’, but it was clear that, by luck, I had struck gold.
The mention in the preamble of clues ‘in thematic order’ hinted at shirt numbers (what else could they be?), and indeed that’s how CARDIFF emerged. I knew Cardiff Arms Park as a home of rugby, and that name went straight to the page. The other players’ names helped a bit with a few sticky Down clues. My last entry was TIGHTWAD, in which G and T were missing (being unchecked), and WAD was entered jumbled as DAW. Not having quite ‘got’ the wordplay, I just made a wild guess that the wonderfully descriptive TIGHTWAD was a real word – and it was! A very satisfying finish.
Thanks to IN (a collaboration?) and to HolyGhost. (I didn’t get ‘Power Discharge’ at the time, but I do now.)
A very impressive grid fill and endgame after some satisfying clues.
Not sure whether IN is a newcomer or a collaboration but we would be very happy with more puzzles like this one.
Thanks to IN and HolyGhost.
Once I realised we were looking at seven longer names, and not fourteen short and unhelpful names, I began to have hope; and once I realised Edward and William might want to be plural, I was almost home. Still had eight unsolved clues in top right at the end, thanks partly to carelessly misplacing Bennett at the top.
What an interesting / unusual theme. Thanks to IN and HolyGhost
My first inquisitor, I don’t subscribe to a print daily but have arranged for a regular delivery from my sister who does take the paper and doesn’t do the crosswords. Also very much enjoying the recycled Indy crosswords of old.
If this is the regular standard of the inquisitor then it’s a most worthy addition to my diet.
I had a different parse for ILIAD. DAILI(es) the last two ‘characters’ from the regular papers.
Thanks IN and HolyGhost.
Tricky indeed, but fun and with a great payoff. All thanks to IN (who I thought at the time might be the relevant components of SPINK/PINK) and HolyGhost.
I’m not a great rugby fan despite being born not all that far from Cardiff Arms Park (in Newport) but was happy to look up the historic try and deduce that shirt numbers were involved. Having checked that clues 1-15 did indeed contain all the letters of CARDIFF, I lazily took the fiddly details for granted….
A fine puzzle and a mighty fine try indeed. All done and dusted correctly here, but I was unable to parse both 43A & 17D so I have to record a personal DNF once again. Regarding the correct parsing for 33A (ILIAD) … I concur with Blah @ 7.
Particularly enjoyable this week – I’d sort of assumed the N in IN is Nimrod, but let’s see. A theme that was close to home, so the names as far as I was concerned could only mean one thing. Thought the reveal of the 3 word (not) phrase was especially well done.
A DNF for not parsing all the clues? That’s a mighty high bar you’re setting for yourself 🙂
Arnold @11
I couldn’t agree more! I too, like Me_Sat… (@9), keep a log and therefore flag puzzles that are DNFs. But you will never catch me flagging puzzles where I have had the good fortune to solve a clue without parsing it correctly!
One could in any case argue that failing to parse a clue could occasionally, just occasionally, be the setter’s fault and not the solver’s.
Blah @7: your suggested parsing of ILIAD at 33a is clearly better than mine. I’ll edit the blog shortly. Thanks
arnold @ 11 & Alan B @ 12 : Thanks for your comments. It’s just a personal thing – I see the Inquisitor as a weekly competitive struggle between the setter(s) and myself. I don’t consider that I’ve truly ‘solved’ a clue if I’m unable to parse it (rather ironically, in this instance one of my failures was UNABLE), so as such, I can’t have truly completed the puzzle. A high bar perhaps – but one that I’m happy to impose upon my own particular efforts. I’m not suggesting at all that others should have to do so too … just Me(_sat_here_at_home)!
There’s little to add bar our thanks to HG for the comprehensive and accurate blog, and to those who subsequently commented. As surmised, this is a joint offering from Nimrod and me. The clues, incidentally, were each individually written by one or other of us rather than being the subject of discussion.
I struggled to complete, even when looking at the answers and aven a bit when reading fifteensquared. Not helped by what I think is an error in 15D (LILO): LILO is used in inventories – Last In Last Out, so nothing goes past its sell-by date; LIFO is used in employment (or non-employment) practice – Last In First Out, rewarding long-serving employees over those only recently taken on. Hanging on to a new apprentice over an experienced hand makes little sense, except that the apprentice will be cheaper.
Colin – I don’t for a minute dispute any of what you say, but the guiding principle is to follow Chambers in its definitions – here “a rough guide to likely order of redundancies” is all it offers. I sympathise, though; in my own field I sometimes find Chambers’ definitions to be dubious at best.