20 comments on “Inquisitor 1483: Ecological by Kruger”

1. Firstly, my own gripe – this is the first IQ I’ve not finished for a while, as far as I can remember, though it was only one clue and the problem was one of translation, I think. But I was much more positively inclined towards this than you kenmac, not least because it was built around such an extraordinary quote, worth it on its own perhaps.

   I believe the section of the quote you are looking for comes just after the one you have given and should be something like:
   The forests are disappearing, the rivers are drying up, the game is being exterminated, the climate is spoiled and the earth becomes poorer and uglier every day.

   There were several translations I came across with variations on climate and earth, but I was sure the ‘game’ part was going to be correct, which I just couldn’t make fit with OTTER at 2D, and as I couldn’t immediately parse it as COTTERING (the IN was the issue) I was certain I was looking for another kind of game to remove, not some creature. Or is OTTER a game that I’ve somehow missed?

   So a frustrating endgame for me and I would say probably not ideal to base a puzzle on a translation which could have many variations without at least pointing us to the specific source (or have I missed it? And there is always that tiny voice now going “ahem, Soprano…”) but still an enjoyable and interesting challenge.

2. Thanks for the blog, Kruger.
   The quote I found was in the ODQ, “Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life becomes extinct, the climate’s ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.” (Uncle Vanya, Act 1).

   This works a little better as the forests, rivers and wild life all go. The land grows poorer and uglier – nation and region get scrambled. I can see ‘feeling’ being ‘climate’, but I didn’t really understand how ‘deposit’ worked for that.

   I quite enjoyed some of the clues in this, but I didn’t feel it all came together.7

3. Kenmac, apologies for calling you Kruger!

4. Caran @1: I think that ‘Deposit’ (“an accumulation by sedimentation…’) and ‘Nation’ come under the heading ‘Land’, while ‘Region’ and ‘Feeling’ are described by ‘Climate’.

   ODQ saved the distractions of alternative translations of the Russian…

   Thanks to Kruger and Kenmac.

5. Thanks, John. At the time of solving, I didn’t bother too much about categorising the affected answers, I was just relieved to have got them all.

6. Thanks Kenmac for confirming I had indeed solved the puzzle. I thought I had missed something as I could not identify five “pairs” in the affected answers. Was this just another way of saying “ten” or is there really something else going on?

   Thanks to Kruger as well

7. As someone warmly disposed to Chekhov I should have enjoyed this but I agree entirely with the observation that to base the puzzle on a fairly obscure quote which on my quick Google has about as many variations as there are solvers, is a bit off.

8. After blogging 1482 I decided to give this one a miss. Very glad I did after reading the blog and comments. Commiserations to Kenmac for an unsatisfactory week’s effort!

9. A similar experience to everyone else I think. I had a full grid, the author and title, and all the amended clues. Googling gave me what looked like a likely quote, but I never did manage to sort out those categories. A slightly unsatisfactory end to an enjoyable puzzle.

10. After a long slog, I got the Chekhov quote in ODQ and identified the missing forests, wildlife and rivers, but was foxed by the anagrams, even though I knew what the words in the grid had to be … TOPSIDE for DEPOSIT, was obvious, and FINE LEG looked like FEELING, but never twigged what ANOINT and IGNORE came from or why (Obvious now.) . Decided to save the stamp this week, even though my grid would have qualified.

    Kruger gave us a tough Listener the same day, which also took the best part of a week to crack, on and off !

    I have now had to adapt my mental image of him as a genial, bearded, bush-hatted Afrikaaner. This was more akin to sjambok-wielding ?

11. A tough slog, yes, but I was pleased to get to the end. I’d missed at least one of the extra words in clues and incorrectly identified another, but a sighting of CHEKHOV or most of him eventually sorted me out. I read Astrov’s speech in the Gutenberg Project Uncle Vanya and — I don’t know whether Kruger intended this — persuaded myself that the two later appearances of the word “nonsense” as Astrov backs down slightly (“it may very well be nonsense … Probably it is all nonsense”) were a clue to entering FEELING, NATION etc. The “land” and “climate” aspects didn’t dawn on me until much later!

12. Sorry to join the chorus of disapproval, but it’s a serious weakness in a thematic puzzle when you can “solve” it without having any idea what it’s about! We filled the entire grid in ignorance apart from 2 cells, leaving just CL?NG and RE?L to do (which there was a very strong chance of guessing correctly), as all the anagrams were straightforward and we had removed real words from 6 clues. We then listed the key letters from extra words and Mrs T identified Uncle Vanya, leading us to the quotation in ODQ which confirmed the accuracy of what we had done and helped us finish off, although the synonyms for “climate” were not very convincing.

    Like Murray@10 we spent most of the week on the Listener puzzle but it was far more enjoyable, so thanks to Kruger for that one!

13. Unlike most (all?) the other commenters, I didn’t find that much wrong with this puzzle (apart from the slightly annoying “just over 25%”). I identified the pairings (even tho’ there’s a River Otter in Devon) and sorted out which of the two possibilities for REGION was meant. I did try Google for the quote but quickly reverted to the ODQ as seemingly did others.

    I take the point about being able to submit a completed grid without actually cracking the puzzle – but for a number of us it’s the satisfaction of ‘finishing’ the puzzle (wordplays & all) rather than just filling the grid.

    So … thanks from me to Kruger, and condolences to Kenmac – a quick estimate is that since we both started blogging here, you’ve tackled 50% of Kruger’s puzzles.

14. Well, I enjoyed this. I assumed that any possible interpretation of the four keywords FORESTS, RIVERS, CLIMATE and LAND could apply, not just those relevant to the quote. The first two categories were fairly obvious (though there is a river Otter, which provided a distraction). Chambers gives “a region” as a Shakespearean definition of CLIMATE, and by analogy with “political climate” FEELING had to be the other in this category. For the LAND category, one had to be NATION and DEPOSIT is pretty much synonymous with LAND when considered as a verb. A simplistic approach perhaps, but it left me satisfied.

    As others have said, there can be problems with translations of source material. I went straight to ODQ to find it once I knew what I was looking for, as I usually do; but it probably would have been a good idea to cite ODQ as the reference in the preamble.

    I too can’t see why we had “just over 25%” rather than “11” (or “some”) in reference to the redundant words. It didn’t really bother me though.

    I’m saddened to see such a negative reaction to this one.

15. Hi all (and especially Kruger),

    I fully expected that I would be the one receiving the backlash after posting a very negative blog. I didn’t intend it to become a free-for-all Kruger-bashing fest.

    Maybe there was too much “clever” stuff going on which might have been softened by a more gently phrased preamble. And, perhaps, specific mention of ODQ would have helped. I do have a copy of ODQ which I inherited a couple of years ago but it’s never really been opened. It’s so much easier to use search engines these days, I feel.

    I do hope that this hasn’t dented Kruger’s confidence in any way as we’ve had some wonderful Kruger’s in the past.

    So, Kruger, ignore the “just over 90%” negativity here and please bounce back. I guess, after all, the puzzles can’t all be classics.

    (I’ll just have to remember to wear a disguise at the next S&B event.) 😉

16. Sorry you didn’t like it Kenmac (and others), but not to worry – I’ve faced worse!

    I’m surprised there was confusion over the quotation. Just as Chambers is the de facto reference for vocabulary, so ODQ is for quotations. Indeed, John H has previously given the list of standard reference material to be used for IQs in one of his vignettes to fill up any space left in the printed copy. Newcomers to IQ may not have been aware of it but “old-timers” should have been.

    Anyway, as usual, my thanks to all for their comments.

17. I’d like to make clear that I was at least 90% positively disposed towards this puzzle.

18. And I’d like to remind Kruger that I loved his recent Listener puzzle, as mentioned @12. One of the best of the year so far.

19. I am obviously in the minority here, as I had no real problem with the quotation or the solving, despite never having read the book or heard of the quote (thanks again, Mr Google!). Yes, the ‘just over 25%’ was a bit obscure, but ultimately resolved by a quick count of clues. In fact, I rather enjoyed the puzzle and endgame.

20. I struggled with this but finally filled the grid and got the author and setting of a quote. I think at this point the puzzle it should be clear what is going on. Even after having found this quote among others on the internet I still did not know which one I should choose or why. At the very least there should be some necessity to identify the quote to produce a completed submission.

    An enjoyable struggle to fill the grid, but the resolution was just too tenuous for me to catch on to.

    Thanks Kruger and kenmac.

    I think it is worth pointing out that even the “misses” in the Inquisitor series stand well above par in the general crossword spectrum.

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