This was a puzzle where I knew nothing about the “Artists” in question, nor the album referred to, nor the group, so the whole thing revolved around a Google search. This is not my favourite type of puzzle, so I was left rather dissatisfied by the end game. There were many unclued or half-clued blanks to fill at the start, so the fact that many of the clues were very straightforward was helpful.
The rubric read: This puzzle celebrates a classic album. Nine clues originally incorporated the titles of the album’s 9 tracks but (true to form for vinyl) all of the tracks have been scratched – solvers should reinstate those missing titles before solving the damaged clues. Twenty of the remaining clues contain a misprint in the definition – corrections to these give four words suggesting the album’s title. To complete the grid, solvers must enter the artists’ names in the unclued lights.
I got 1A, 1D and 2D immediately and was then frustrated to find that this helped hardly at all as all the crossing entries were unclued or part of the “Damaged Tracks” clues. Start again!
Some simple clues (e.g. 3A) and some pretty obviously flagged anagrams (e.g. 16A) later and I had much of the top left and bottom right filled. Two of the artists were ????c?er (Thatcher? Surely not!) and ?LLSLE?. I decided this must start with a vowel and tried them in turn. I found ILLSLEY which led to John Illsley, the bass guitarist of Dire Straits. This helped me not at all, knowing nothing about them or their albums. I resorted to Mr. Google and found members Mark KNOPFLER, Alan CLARK, Guy FLETCHER and Terry WILLIAMS in articles about the band. HAK?M was absent.
Their most famous album was Brothers in Arms. I Googled further for the track list. It was:
- So Far Away
- Money for Nothing
- Walk of Life
- Your Latest Trick
- Why Worry
- Ride Across the River
- The Man’s Too Strong
- One World
- Brothers in Arms
These fitted nicely into the Damaged Tracks clues, yielding seven good clues and two excellent ones.
Hak?m was still missing, but I later learned that drummer Terry Williams was replaced by Sting’s drummer Omar HAKIM halfway through the album after producer Neil Dorfsman decided he wasn’t up to scratch.
I already had RIFLE G?IMM as 10 of the 20 misprints, so Brothers GRIMM in Arms – RIFLE, but still had to sort out the misprinted letters in the remaining clues. After GRIMM I had MA?* The misprint was in pack in 12A – answer goal line – and I realised R in paRk, and hence MAR*. Obviously the MARX brothers. After a futile search for a misprinted X I realised that it was the Super MARIO brothers of Nintendo fame. This left a missing “arm” starting with K and containing IF – KNIFE. So GRIMM and MARIO (brothers) in RIFLE and KNIFE (arms). A bit of reverse engineering and it was all complete.
Nudd’s last Inquisitor was 1529 “That Sinking Feeling” which I found much more approachable – maybe because I am a sailor and it had a nautical theme and quotation. I’m sure rock fans will have found this one quite fun, but I was left rather underwhelmed.
Damaged Tracks |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Track | Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay |
| 14A | So Far Away | London bridge tracks so far away from being aligned (5) | ASKEW | KEW (Bridge) follows AS (so far) |
| 45A | Money for Nothing | Bread dish brings in money for nothing for Jack (3) | PAM | PANADA (bread dish) with NADA (nothing) replaced by M(oney). My favourite clue. |
| 5D | Walk of Life | Slightly mad Lord’s walk of life (5) | FIELD | Field = profession = walk of life?: FIE (slightly mad) + LD (lord) |
| 43A | Your Latest Trick | Plate spinning’s your latest trick (6) | PALTER | [PLATE]* + (you)R |
| 17D | Why Worry | Cutting a dash – so why worry? (5) | SHOWY | [SO WHY]* |
| 41A | Ride Across the River | The old nimbly ride across the river in phaeton – just tops! (8) | OVERTRIP | OVER (across serving two purposes) + T(he) R(iver) I(n) P(haeton) |
| 6A | The Man’s Too Strong | Three got into fighting with ____? Could be stupid – i.e. the man’s too strong (6) | SAMSON | [THREE GOT INTO SAMSON]* = I.E. THE MAN’S TOO STRONG. Another great clue. |
| 11A | One World | A Greek area – it’s home to more than one world heritage site (4) | AGRA | A + GR(eek) + A(rea) |
| 13A | Brothers in Arms | 13ac Brothers in arms code breaking (8) | COMRADES | [ARMS CODE]* – in arms used twice |
Across |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue definition (misprint) correct | Answer | Wordplay | X |
| 1 | Cha(p)r ate nuts (3) | TEA | [ATE]* | R |
| 3 | Copper’s fine following str(o)ike (4) | CUFF | CU (copper) + F(ine) + F(ollowing) | I |
| 16 | Less turf processed in (s)flurries (8) | FLUSTERS | [LESS TURF]* | F |
| 18 | Institute blocking legal right to linger longer (5, 2 words) | LIE IN | I(nstitute) in LIEN (legal right) | |
| 20 | Su(r)lly ruler in school (6) | SMIRCH | MIR (Muslim ruler) in SCH(ool) | L |
| 23 | Most of form thus recognised work (7) | CLASSIC | CLAS(s) (most of form) + SIC (thus) | |
| 25 | Following lobby we Scots call for attention (6) | HALLOO | HALL (lobby) + OO (Scots we) | |
| 27 | As for drug in vegetable, this helps with (m)eating (7) | CUTLERY | Replace E (drug) by UT (as) in C(E)LERY (vegetable) | E |
| 28 | Rod’s put in a corner next to end of radiator (6) | ANGLER | ANGLE (corner) + (radiato)R | |
| 30 | That lady’s back with resentment to en(r)gage again (6) | REHIRE | HER (that lady’s) reversed+ IRE (resentment) | G |
| 33 | Looks like gangster’s put on weight – that’s deadly (5) | FATAL | AL (Capone) has got FAT!! | |
| 38 | Clea(n)r flipping ridiculous houses (5) | LUCID | Hidden reversed in riDICULous | R |
| 39 | Receiving tense answer, court bristles (5) | SETAE | SEE (court) round T(ense) A(nswer) | |
| 42 | G(u)ist caught seaweed (4) | CORE | C(aught) + ORE (seaweed) | I |
| 44 | Large fish found in forecabin’s thrown back (4) | CERO | Hidden reversed in fORECabin | |
Down |
||||
| No. | Clue definition (misprint) correct | Answer | Wordplay | X |
| 1 | Fastening handlebar? (5) | TACHE | Double definition | |
| 2 | Athletic with Royal Marines’ ability to throw (3) | ARM | A(thletic) + R(oyal) M(arines) | |
| 3 | (S)Molar decomposition maybe beginning to cool house (6) | CARIES | C(ool) + ARIES (house) | M |
| 4 | With sign of hesitation, friend makes satisfying s(n)mack (5) | UMAMI | UM (hesitation) + AMI (friend) | M |
| 7 | Once out, uplifting gesture of salutation (not in the morning) (4) | ALAS | For definition, see out in Chambers: SALAAM (gesture of salutation) reversed minus AM (morning) | |
| 8 | Motor yacht is lit up dimly (7) | MISTILY | [MY (motor yacht) IS LIT]* | |
| 9 | S(h)mall cannon aim right? (5) | SAKER | SAKE (aim) + R(ight) | M |
| 10 | Volunteers abandoning Mafia rules by which gr(o)ain was measured (4) | OMER | OMERTA (Mafia rules) minus TA (volunteers) | A |
| 12 | After shuffling, lie along edge of the pa(c)rk (8, 2 words) | GOAL LINE | [LIE ALONG]* | R |
| 15 | Supremo’s seizing adult ass (5) | KIANG | KING round A(dult) | |
| 19 | Returned money – rupee – that is found in Indian f(a)ire (5) | NITRE | TIN (money) reversed + RE (rupee) | I |
| 20 | Aussie canary bruised flesh (5) | SHELF | [FLESH]* | |
| 21 | Injure top of leg and bind with c(a)ord (4) | MARL | MAR (injure) + L(eg) | O |
| 22 | Better loo(t)king position held by one showing promise (8) | COMELIER | COMER (one showing promise) round LIE (position) | K |
| 24 | Maybe Romeo ignoring the odds assumed end to rancour (4) | SUER | (a)S(s)U(m)E(d) + (rancou)R | |
| 26 | Colour Juliet’s heart with dark red resin (5) | LILAC | (Ju)LI(et) + LAC (resin) | |
| 27 | Picture library features something drawn round the edge (7) | CLIPART | CART (something drawn) round LIP (edge) | |
| 29 | Only child slices up plaster (6) | STUCCO | O(nly) + C(hild) + CUTS (slices) all reversed (up) | |
| 31 | I(a)nn’s house on a hill (5) | HOTEL | HO(use) on TEL (hill) | N |
| 32 | Historic memorial relative cleared out in public (5) | RELIC | REL(ative) + I(n publi)C (cleared out) | |
| 34 | Sh(a)ift’s changing later (5) | ALTER | [LATER]* | I |
| 35 | Dreadful dream’s to the point (5, 2 words) | AD REM | [DREAM]* | |
| 36 | Vane spinning (s)flower in Russia (4) | NEVA | [VANE]* | F |
| 37 | Holiday pay’s taking time (4) | FETE | FEE (pay) round T(ime) | |
| 40 | Unfinished enclosure – it’s often used for be(a)er (3) | HOP | HOP(e) (enclosure) unfinished | E |
One of my favourite groups with one of their best albums should mean that I enjoyed this puzzle but alas I didn’t very much.
My first title was 13a though, at first, I thought it represented MARS and immediately thought of Bowie.
After completing the grid, there were too many loose ends that I just couldn’t be bothered tying up. This situation, I find dissatisfying.
Thanks to Hi for the grid and thanks to Nudd for a wonderful theme though slightly disappointing puzzle.
It’s an album I’d heard of, without ever hearing, so it didn’t take too long to piece things together. Plus Mark Knopfler is fairly well celebrated in these parts, having grown up just up the road from me.
I found this fairly straightforward and it didn’t cause too many problems, although the NE corner did create a few moments of frustration. I couldn’t parse 8D, the abbreviation for Motor Yacht being a new one for me.
Perhaps not my favourite IQ but one has to admire the way the track clues were created….that was a novel and very clever technique. Thanks as ever to blogger and setter.
Another musical one! I liked the dual opportunity to break into this theme: waiting for either an artist’s name or a track title to reveal itself from the two different kinds of themed answers.
The likely band came from HAKIM and a name that could have been WILLIAMS, and at more or less the same time a couple of track titles formed themselves via AGRA and COMRADES. The remaining artists and then the track titles fell into place. I couldn’t parse some of the ‘damaged tracks’ clues but had no problems with any other clues apart from MY = Motor Yacht in 6d.
The letters coming from the 20 clues weren’t needed until near the end, when they helped to solve the most obstinate of them. The four-word ‘cryptic clue’ for Brothers in Arms was very neat. I too thought of MARX until MARIO forced itself into that set.
Only after reading the blog do I understand what was going on in some of the ‘damaged tracks’ clues. SAMSON was indeed an excellent clue, which I wish I had managed to work out. PAM is also fully explained but was not such a good clue as there were three unfamiliar words to deal with: PAM, ‘panada’ and ‘nada’. (I can handle one or two but not three in the same clue!) In ASKEW, AS = ‘so far’ was new to me so is something learned today. Finally, in FIELD, I didn’t get FIE meaning ‘slightly mad’, but I should have looked it up.
The theme meant more to me than to Hihoba and contributed to my quota of fun in solving it.
Thanks to Nudd for an enjoyable puzzle, and to Hihoba for a comprehensive blog and for clearing up the bits that left me baffled.
One of the first CDs I bought! Mid 80s.At first the unclued ILLSLEY looked like it could be PRESLEY which would have gone with FLETCHER for TROGGS but they were hardly likely to do an album of 9 songs!.So back to the drawing board.Then memories of that unforgettable moment when the ambient intro fades to black and that riff from hell blasts through the speakers.
Thanks Nudd and Hihoba.
I enjoyed this and after enlisting the help of Google I didn’t have any difficulty parsing the clues. I had heard of of “Dire Straits”, “Mark Knopfler” and “Money for Nothing”. I thought I remembered “Comrades in Arms” but that turned out to be a mistake.
It doesn’t bother me too much if I don’t know the theme. If I do then it is a bonus and if I don’t then I learn something.
Thank you Nudd for a fun puzzle and to Hihoba for the blog.
The album in question isn’t really my cup of tea, but I’ve listened to it enough times for it to be painfully ingrained in my memory. 😉 I thought this was a fun puzzle nevertheless, perhaps helped because I swiftly spotted the theme and found it a fairly comfortable solve. I especially liked the damaged tracks clues, which were nicely done, each one a nice PDM.
When I read the preamble I resigned myself to hours of searching for groups and albums I’d never heard of, so it was a nice surprise to find that the theme was based on one of the few rock albums I actually possess! I thought that the use of the tracks as wordplay was incredibly clever, and although I now recall “Dire Straits” being used as a clue for ARTISTS in the past, I didn’t twig the theme from the title. A nice relaxing solve to follow Nimrod’s brilliant head-scratcher from the previous week. Thanks Nudd.
The usual thanks to Nudd and Hihoba. Rock music isn’t my thing at all and Google was of the essence, but the great thing about IQ is the variety of themes — once in a while there’s one that seems to have been designed just for me, but I can’t expect that too often!
Like @4 above I was hoping that the unclued ???SLEY would be PRESLEY (I’ve heard of him), which obviously didn’t work out. However, I was extremely chuffed to deduce the “damaged track” clue Brothers in Arms (never heard of it) from a guess at COMRADES. As others have said, those clues were really clever — appreciated after Googling for the track list. SAMSON took ages to parse and I too spent some time trying to persuade the clues to yield MARX rather than MARIO brothers. The relative gentleness of the straight clues was also a relief.
I guessed the theme immediately from scanning the clues and spotting Romeo and then Juliet (which is another Dire Straits song from a different album), then twigging the title was an anagram of ‘Straits’. Wikipedia helped with the band members and track listing. Finished it but couldn’t parse a couple so thanks to blogger and setter
Reading the preamble, this looked more daunting than it turned out to be. Some easy starters, although I had the same problem as Hi with the top left corner. I have the album on vinyl but have not played it for years and had forgotten the artists’ names except for Knopfler. But having found the checked HAKIM & ?LLSLEY, a web search led to a fairly quick finish, with the misprints now becoming more obvious and allowing some reverse engineering on the final few clues. As Hi says, “horses for courses” – I enjoyed this one.
The damaged tracks idea was very clever – a first for IQ?
Thanks to Nudd and Hihoba.
BTW, Chris Rea, like Mark Knopfler, was raised in the north-east,, and apparently he would have liked to join Dire Straits. This led to some coarse suggestions as to what the new line-up might be called. Sorry to lower the tone!
Thanks to Hihoba for the blog and to all for your comments. Those early ones from Hi & Kenmac almost had me hanging up my setting boots so it was a relief to find that some had enjoyed it. Apologies to those who didn’t – I don’t deliberately set out to create disappointing puzzles but I suppose sometimes there are going to be dissenting voices.
Nudd @11
Thank you for your comment – I appreciate hearing the views of setters who ‘pop in’ in this way. I’m newer to these puzzles than most of the commenters here, but having started in mid-March I’m no longer a novice. The bar for these puzzles is set high, in my opinion, and I’m sure that’s more down to what you setters are always striving for rather than to any quality norm prescribed by the editor. I’m impressed with the variety of the themes and of the ways in which they are executed. The idea of forcing given words or phrases verbatim into the wordplay of a group of clues must have been challenging and was new to me – although I may be informed that it has been done before. As you know, I enjoyed this puzzle and would have said something different (and suitably civil) if I had not.
Lovely puzzle, thanks Nudd.
I have never owned the album but I do remember a friend’s dad having it on in the car once and I was very taken by Walk of Life and Money for Nothing, which led to borrowing Terrier’s cassette copy for a while.
It may just have been the way I worked through the grid but I had a substantial proportion solved before the PDM. KNOPFLER was the key and it seemed to me like he was well hidden in the grid, being the most well-known member of the group (I’d got HAKIM and FLETCHER but they meant nothing to me and I was trying to avoid googling for as long as possible).
Someone above mentioned Romeo & Juliet appearing in consecutive clues which made me wonder whether there were any more Dire Straits links scattered throughout?
Alan B, thank you for your comment @12 .. I have actually produced a couple of similarly themed puzzles using the same gimmick, but otherwise have not seen anything of this nature used anywhere else. Those two early efforts were both used on Derek Harrison’s Crossword Centre site, so this is the only one of this type I have produced for the Inquisitor series. Kippax @13, thanks to you too – I can confirm that the Romeo & Juliet was indeed intentional but that was the only extra deliberately included – if there are any other links I can assure you they are purely accidental
Nudd @ 11 and 14: I didn’t mean to disparage your efforts! There were aspects of the puzzle that I liked a lot, particularly the “scratched” clues. Please don’t take one blogger’s opinion (clearly not shared by other solvers, as you see from the other comments) as a reason to “hang up your boots”. I am in awe of ALL our setters, so please continue.
@1 @11 @14
Oops!
I never meant to offend anyone, especially one of our setters. Where would we be without you guys?
I simply meant that I always feel a bit empty when I know that there are loose ends, which don’t need to be tied up in order to complete the grid suitably for submission.
Had it been my week to blog, I would have forced myself to tidy everything up.
Maybe I got out of the wrong side of the bed or maybe, 4.22am is the wrong time to post.
SORRY TO ANYONE WHO WAS OFFENDED.
Thanks to Nudd for dropping in and for a fun puzzle. At first I fancied my chances of guessing the theme from the introduction, but I could not think of any “classic album” by a six-piece band so set about solving and it was only when ILLSLEY started to appear that I identified the band. There was only one serious candidate for the album, although hardcore DS fans might disagree. I then expected KNOPFLER x 2 to appear as I’m sure Marks’ brother was also in the band, but presumably not at that time. It was downhill from there, but some of the clues with song titles omitted were very tricky. That was a smart innovation from Nudd. The title was neat too, but I only realised its significance when I looked at these posts. Like kenmac I don’t always work out every element when it was not necessary in order to complete the puzzle, but I did on this occasion and was impressed by the “brothers” falling between the “arms”.
Viewers of the CBeebies channel (ie those with young children or grandchildren) and trivia fans may be interested to know that DS keyboard player Guy Fletcher is a cousin of Justin Fletcher, aka Mr Tumble.
Now, I wonder if Kippax ever gave me that cassette back. If so, it probably went to a charity shop years ago.
Just returned from a week away …
As with others, finding KNOPFLER was the nudge I needed to get me over the brow of the hill. I think that Brothers in Arms was the first CD I bought … shortly before or after seeing Dire Straits live at the Hammersmith Odeon. So, thank you Nudd for the reminder. And I’m another one who remembered that Artists = [STRAITS]* only after reading the above comments. So thanks to all those, and to Hi for the blog.