Inquisitor 1823: Open Minds by Cranberry

18 comments on “Inquisitor 1823: Open Minds by Cranberry”

1. 

   Kippax

   #1 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 10:03

   
   

   “A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man” is a quote from The Simpsons, and “embiggens” is, like cromulent, a word coined by the show.

2. 

   KVa

   #2 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 10:11

   
   

   ABOVE
   from (the) beginning=AB OVO—->almost—->AB OV, (the) end of ‘game’=E

3. 

   arnold

   #3 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 10:12

   
   

   It’s actually the motto of Springfield, the Simpsons’ home town. And the second quote is by Bradlaugh.

   I thought this was a brilliant puzzle with multiple layers that were fun to discover. A bit unusual (iconoclastic?) to have Lisa Simpson alongside Charles Bradlaugh but delving into the stories of both was fascinating.

   Only very minor niggle for me was the final highlighting – with 11 letters I thought it might be SPRINGFIELD or perhaps NORTHAMPTON, so it took me a while to find Big Ben. I had actually highlighted BIG BEN ABOVE (two lines below) but that didn’t feel right, so nice to see there was a better answer.

   Thanks everyone, that was fun!

4. 

   Phil K

   #4 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 10:24

   
   

   One half of the theme was clear to me as soon as I identified CROMULENT (though it was not so clear thet “eminently” is an extra word here). The other half of the theme was new to me and consequently, as with arnold, I was distracted by Springfield. Although once Big Ben was identified (and its relative position), it made for a satisfying conclusion.

   Thanks to setter and blogger for the diversion.

5. 

   KVa

   #5 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 10:29

   
   

   ODE
   seems to be like this…
   wordbook=OED (Oxford English Dictionary)
   later parts of OED=ED
   alphabetising ED=DE.

6. 

   kenmac

   #6 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 10:52

   
   

   Kva @5

   There’s ODE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Dictionary_of_English?wprov=sfti1

   And OED: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary?wprov=sfti1

   All very confusing!

7. 

   Neil Hunter

   #7 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 11:11

   
   

   I do love the puzzles that make unexpected, even ridiculous, connections and the positioning of Bradlaugh (new to me) under the tower I think justifies this one (it’s a brilliant episode, by the way). I’m sure Cranberry intended that we would all be looking for Springfield, but it hardly wasted too much time, and Big Ben was pleasingly visible. Many thanks to Cranberry and kenmac

8. 

   Alan B

   #8 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 12:27

   
   

   This is my second puzzle by Cranberry, which I found as challenging as my first (no. 1790 ‘Great Parliamentarians’). It was a good set of clues, many of them showing great inventiveness and originality. At times I found it quite difficult to cope with the device whereby each clue carried a superfluous word. However, I made my way steadily to my last corner, where there was a tough pair of clues: PURL and RHUS. For PURL I had MULL at first, which nearly works, but it spoils RHUS, which I was pretty sure of but could not fully parse.

   Of the thematic items I got CHARLES BRADLAUGH first (before the grid was complete), then the two quotes from the clues, then ICONOCLASTS, then LISA SIMPSON and finally, after some puzzlement about what to find, BIG BEN TOWER (which of course is not a name for Parliament but is a fair representation of it). Like Arnold, I first thought Northampton might be the place we should look for.

   It was an interesting theme which I knew nothing about – which is a good reason for continuing to try these puzzles.

   Thanks to Cranberry, and to kenmac for a blog produced in such busy circumstances.

9. 

   KVa

   #9 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 12:42

   
   

   kenmac@6
   Agree with you that it could be either ODE or OED.
   I considered OED because of the words in the clue: ‘alphabetising later parts’.
   If we take ODE as ‘wordbook alphabetising’, then the ‘later parts’ is redundant.
   I may be missing something of course.

10. 

    cranberryfez

    #10 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 13:56

    
    

    Thanks for the blog kenmac, and thanks for all comments.

    KVa – intention with ODE was indeed to “alphabetise” the ED from OED (that being a Chambers-compliant abbreviation, unlike ODE) but your alternative parse works too 🙂

    Alan B – yes MULL nearly works (but would need a def-by-example for “warm beer”, and “upset” maybe a little stretchy) so quite tricky that one!

    With Springfield having 11 letters it would of course be tempting, but hopefully, with Lisa having CROMULENT in the grid and Charles having BIG BEN… that provides some balance, so I hope the grid-staring wasn’t too laborious! I’ll admit the Northampton possibility passed me by)

    All comments greatly appreciated (happy to address / discuss any parsing or other issues!)

    Thanks again,
    @CranberryFez

11. 

    KVa

    #11 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 14:10

    
    

    cranberryfez@10
    Thanks for dropping and clarifying on a few points.
    My post@5:
    I took OED as ‘wordbook’ and alphabetised ED to DE. I think that’s what you had in mind (and have explained in your post@10). Right?

12. 

    KVa

    #12 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 14:10

    
    

    dropping in*

13. 

    cranberryfez

    #13 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 14:56

    
    

    Thanks KVa@11, yes that was the intention – I guess just “[Reworks] lines in wordbook” would do, if you take ODE as the wordbook … but I’m not keen on non-Chambers abbreviations, or link words in (what would then be) a double-def clue – sorry for possible ambiguity but I think it works OK

14. 

    KVa

    #14 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 15:15

    
    

    Thanks, Cranberry!
    Loved the pleasurable twist in the clue (no ambiguity). It works better than OK.

15. 

    Herb

    #15 - Tue 10th Oct 23, 23:44

    
    

    I relatively relaxing solve after the previous week’s humdinger. I enjoyed the way the colourful hybrid theme emerged – cromulent actually came first (of the thematic bits) for me and I wondered what on earth was going on.

    It doesn’t seem to have caused much trouble, but I don’t think anyone’s actually explained the Lisa half of the theme yet. Lisa is an “iconoclast” because of the episode “Lisa the Iconoclast”. She doesn’t coin “cromulent” but it’s in that episode that another teacher uses it when Edna Krabappel kvetches about the dubious “embiggens” in the town motto (“It’s a perfectly cromulent word…”). It’s certainly a classic episode, with both silly neologisms almost now legitimate words through their popularity. (See Wikipedia)

16. 

    David Langford

    #16 - Wed 11th Oct 23, 14:33

    
    

    Coming in late: yes, much enjoyed. All thanks to Cranberry and kenmac. I laughed out loud on seeing CROMULENT. I don’t think anyone has mentioned that Bradlaugh didn’t just do iconoclastic things but wrote his early freethinking pamphlets under the pen name Iconoclast.

17. 

    Rob T

    #17 - Sat 14th Oct 23, 11:20

    
    

    I’m normally scared of barred thematics but I find Cranberry’s oddly approachable (maybe a wavelength thing, as I’ve done many of his ‘regular’ grids under another setter name). So I gave this a go and surprised myself by making more progress more quickly than I expected! Like others, my way in was CROMULENT and for a while I assumed the whole theme was The Simpsons (and so was looking for SPRINGFIELD – nice misdirection – and a second Simpsons quote). I eventually got enough of the second quote in fragments to guess at words which led me, via Google, to Bradlaugh, and ultimately to BIG BEN TOWER. The whole thing took several visits over a couple of days but it was oh so satisfying to complete it!

    Lots of good clues but I was particularly amused by references to PiL and Kylie 🙂

    Many thanks, both!

18. 

    icm

    #18 - Sun 15th Oct 23, 09:13

    
    

    I’d just like to add my admiration for the audacity of the last line in the rubric!

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