It’s Joyce here with her first Inquisitor blog.
The preamble: Wordplay in most clues fails to provide one or more letters of the defined entry. These omitted letters form the members of a set and should be highlighted in the completed grid. Contents of the initially shaded cells can be arranged to give an associate member which should be written below the grid.
As always, we just get stuck into the crossword without thinking too much about what is in the preamble.
EYEBROW (1ac) came first and then ENDGAME (1d) which we thought may be a double definition, although we weren’t convinced. Having solved 6ac, 4d, 5d, 6d, and 7d we realised that the 3rd letter in each entry is not covered by the wordplay in the clues – giving us DESTRO?? in the 3rd row. When we solved 10ac and 16ac (with no ‘spare’ letters), and 13d with an isolated A in the 3rd row we realised that this A had to be associated with DESTRO??. We had difficulty with the expressionist painter at 14d, but found the R in 2d, giving us AR?DESTRO??, or if 1d was not a double definition, DAR?DESTRO??. We decided it had to be DESTROYER, with 15ac having no wordplay – very sneaky, Kruger!
Meanwhile, having solved 17ac, 20ac, 23ac and 26ac, we had BEAS??? appearing in the final column and our first thought was that we may have the names of Gladiators from the TV series. We don’t watch it, but our grandchildren like posing as the different characters while others have to guess who they are. We guessed that we may have BEAST in the last column and a quick search revealed that we were not looking for Gladiators but various ‘Chasers’ from the TV programme, ‘The Chase’ – DARK DESTROYER being another. We’ve never watched this programme either but once we were on the webpage we saw the names of some of the other ‘chasers’ – and confirmed that 1d is not a double definition!
This meant that we were able to fill in some of the characters rather too quickly as we worked our way through the clues.
Our favourite clue was 35D – VALUE but we weren’t so keen on A VENUE – you removed the letter in the parsing but then re-instated the same letter in the grid.
We had to ask for some help from the IQ blogging team for 25ac. We kept thinking that there was an error as we had an E at the start for the first letter or ‘introduction’ to evidence but this E should not have been included in the wordplay. We completely missed the double definition.
Thanks Kruger – some interesting clues but once we had the missing characters we were able to fill quite a bit of the grid – perhaps we shouldn’t have checked our first guess at the theme.
The title comes from CHASE – another word for a groove.
Bradley Walsh is the host – the missing character, made by rearranging the letters in the initially shaded cells
E (English) and an anagram (‘shot’) of BOWYER
ALPacAS (camelids) with H (hard) replacing ‘ac’ (ante cibum – before food)
An anagram (‘constructed’) of stONEhENGE without ‘h’ (last letter of earth) and ‘st’ (stone)
SPY (agent) around or ‘overcoming’ R (resistance)
Definition only – no word play
GUY (make fun of) around or ‘entertaining’ eLLE (French female) missing first letter or ‘faceless’
An anagram (‘repaired’) of AT RIM after T (last letter or ‘tail’ of jet)
An anagram (‘mysteriously’) of R (first letter or ‘start’ to resurface) and IN SEA – ‘As’ is the chemical symbol for Arsenic
hAMPER (impede) but dropping the ‘h’ as a Cockney may say it
N (first letter or ‘introduction’ to NATO) ARM (power)
An anagram (‘corrupt’) of ITALy missing last letter or ‘not completely’
A double definition – REST (to remain) and REST (to finish the introduction of evidence as used in court – ‘I rest my case’)
STR (straight) and M (first letter or ‘head’ of machete)
Hidden (‘somewhat’) in asthmA IS Misdiagnosed. The Doc referred to is one of the dwarfs in Snow White,
‘I’ removed or ‘got out of’ ADiEU (farewell)
A VeNUE (meeting place) missing the second letter
RORY (Scottish word for too bright) around or ‘including’ BB (books)
A (adult) CASE (covering)
COOP (confined space) around or ‘accommodating’ I (current)
Middle or ‘essential’ letters of sLOw
MEN (husbands)
RE (about) put onto ETAGE (French for floor) – ‘Nice’ referring to the French city
AE (‘aetatis’ – ‘aged’) + first letters (‘from the outset’) of Eleven Already + S (succeeded)
A reversal (‘relapse’) of MULE (drug smuggler) inside or ‘breaking’ RES (resolution)
Hidden (‘of’) in disENGAgement
A reversal (‘upset’) of the odd letters in LoOkEd
REE (an enclosure in Scotland) – hence ‘the laird’s enclosure’
ON (with respect to) Y (year) ER (former monarch) – A Shakespearean word with an unsubstantiated meaning
WET (feeble)
An anagram (‘damage’) of R (first letter or ‘top’ of reactor) and ALAS
PR (press release) MP (representative) T (time)
A reversal (‘mounting’) of RANA (genus of frogs) – an old (forgotten) word meaning ‘to approach’
SO (very good) – a sorb is a service tree
PI (irrational number) M (male) ATE (‘worried’)
RA (Republic of Argentina) after an anagram (‘unusual’) of OUR
LIE (story) about N (North)
ME (one) inside or ‘interrupting’ a reversal (‘returning’) of RAS (prince)
ASS (idiot) UAE (United Arab Emirates – ‘Middle East States’)
Half of IMPRObable (unlikely)
RUBIk (the puzzling man – Erno Rubik) losing K (king) – a Spenserian spelling of Ruby
YPrES (WWI battlefield) losing R (right)
An anagram (‘somehow’) of CO (cobalt) and MINE
N (nitrogen) in MESS (disorder)
C (catholic) in DOTE (decay) – a new meaning of ‘dote’ for us
V (very) + U (posh) inside or ‘bottled’ by ALE (beer)
A (are) with C (coloured) at the front – the American (‘Cheyenne’) spelling of caeca – small pouches in the alimentary canal
A reversal (‘rising’) of REEk (smoke) missing last letter or ‘almost’
Middle letters of scOre greAtly troubLesome
ME (yours truly) reversed or ‘climbing’
I had filled most of the top half and started in the bottom half when the string of letters DARKDESTRO suddenly stood out. The likely theme thereby revealed itself, prompting me to shade what ‘omitted letters’ I already had in the grid. After DARK DESTROYER, BEAST and VIXEN soon followed, and obviously the associate was going to be Bradley Walsh.
This was a well-constructed Inquisitor, and quite challenging to solve for a while because of the (potential) omitted letters. The bottom half became more straightforward when GOVERNESS and SINNERMAN became evident. I was impressed by the symmetrical grid, bearing in mind that three long names, as well as the three shorter ones, had to be accommodated. Once again, I enjoyed a good set of Inquisitor clues.
Thanks to Kruger for his umpteenth Inquisitor and to Joyce for her first blog.
Another enjoyable challenge. Thanks to Kruger and Joyce.
I too first noticed the many unclued letters in the third row and eventually got to DARK DESTROYER, which alas meant nothing to me. Adding BEAST and VIXEN gave vaguely heavy-metal vibes, and I Googled expecting a rock group. Instead, of course, the truth was revealed. Never watched the show but had heard of it and its host thanks to the Private Eye “Dumb Britain” feature (and “Sinnerman” from some dimly remembered news story). Nifty construction, and a satisfying outcome even for the lesser breeds who don’t follow quiz shows!
Pleased to see Kruger’s name as one of my favourites last year was ‘From A to B (and Back Again)’. Also nice to see a popular culture theme, makes a change from Greek mythology and whatnot 🙂 My only little eyebrow wiggle (apart from not cluing any of the letters in OYER, technically fair if somewhat cheeky) was that the method of inserting Bradley Walsh into the proceedings was a little… arbitrary? I guess the rest of the grid construction was complicated enough without working in another name, but I think the puzzle would have worked perfectly well without that final ‘flourish’.
Many thanks!
I can’t decide whether the OYER clue is the setter deploying a legitimate weapon from their armoury, or abruptly deciding that the game we are all playing is no longer Rugby Union but Rugby League, with the rules changing accordingly. If it weren’t that the answer became unmistakeable as the DARK DESTROYER emerged, I would probably still be fretting over how the cryptic grammar could work and what I might be missing. Thanks to Kruger and to Joyce (incidentally, on the helpful filled-in grid above, AENEAS is misprinted).
Thanks to all those who have commented already. Also, a special thank you to Sagittarius who spotted my error. We use a blogging tool, but for IQs you have to create your own grid so it is really difficult to alter it once it is in the blog. Bert checked the parsing and added a few finishing touches as I do to his blogs, but we both missed the error which meant that the wrong letter was shaded for BRADLEY WALSH.
Apologies to everyone – especially Kruger.
Another good Inquisitor; I enjoyed the way the chasers were generated, and ‘oyer’, because it was inevitable, made me smile. I delayed going to a search engine, until Dark Destroyer, Vixen and Governess made it perfectly clear I had no idea what was going on. Thanks to Kruger and Joyce.
Bert here: thanks to Sagittarius@4 for pointing out the mistyped grid entry at 45ac – now corrected in the grid image.