The umpteenth Inquisitor from Phi …
Preamble: The key phases of the moon here are 1st Quarter, 3rd Quarter and Full. 4-, 8- and 12-letter entries suffer a Phase Shift: the wordplay in their clues refers to the entry but with one phase replaced by the same phase of another entry – e.g. MOON might have its third quarter replaced by that of LUNATION giving MOTIN in the wordplay; that O from MOON replaces a third quarter elsewhere. For the six instances of each phase, clues are presented in alphabetical order of wordplay. Wordplay to other entries (the clues listed normally) exemplifies the remaining phase, wherever appropriate.
I managed only 20a RED SETTER on my first time through the ‘normals’ and then 10a STALEMATE, where the wordplay didn’t quite work – M was missing. Then came 1stQ WEATHER GLEAM but only by using the CD ROM to do a full-text search, and I decided to put it in the rightmost column. A bit later I got 18a NOBILIARY, the wordplay missing the N & O; so I decided that the wordplay in the clues listed normally omitted any letters in common with MOON since the new moon (the remaining phase) is not visible. Then I succumbed to what I don’t like doing – I searched for pattern matches on the 12-letter entries in columns 5 & 8, delivering OTOSCLEROSIS and TELEPRESENCE.
With those two in, I solved some more of the normal(ish) clues, and the odd special, before deciding to tackle the 8-letter entries. (Somewhere along the way ALPHANUMERIC appeared in leftmost column, but I couldn’t fathom the wordplay.) This all felt more like work than pleasure, but, towards the end of sorting out the 1stQ & 3rdQ clues, the shifting of bits of one entry into the wordplay of another finally kicked in to help. Finally the grid was complete, but I still hadn’t made sense of the Full clues. In my book, 3rd Quarter is known as Last Quarter, and Full Moon comes between 1st Quarter and that – so which ‘phase’ should I be looking to replace? Frankly, it all seemed to be a bit of a hotchpotch that paid rather more attention to language (1st, 3rd, Full) than to any astronomical detail. 
It was only when I was writing the blog and had finished all but the last set of 6 (“Full”) that I had a serious look at what was going on there. I can’t remember whether it was discovering “(whe)RE IN(donesians)” in the clue for 12 ANOA, or “NO (number) in A+A (articles)” in the clue for 1 ALPHANUMERIC, that made me realise it was simply (?!) that the entire wordplay for one entry was with the definition of another.
It feels as if whatever theme there might be was shoehorned in to this puzzle. Not one of the best I’m afraid to say, Phi.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay | |
| 1 | Former soldier tucking into a tea, finding something fishy (9) | ANCHOVETA | A_CH_VETA | VAT (former soldier) in A CHA (tea) |
| 7 | Bird losing its tail, showing its third eyelid (3) | HAW | HAW | HAW(k) (bird) |
| 10 | Condition after swallowing beer? Inability to move (9) | STALEMATE | STALE_ATE | STATE (condition) around ALE (beer) |
| 13 | More than one bank harms, when investing in historic areas of England (9) | HILLSIDES | HILLSIDES | ILLS (harms) in HIDES (areas of land, old English law) |
| 18 | Past accepting one unreliable source regarding high rank (9) | NOBILIARY | __BILIARY | BY (past) around I (one) LIAR (unreliable source) |
| 20 | Dog in Scotland to restore order to disorderly street (9, 2 words) | RED SETTER | RED SETTER | RED (restore, Scot) [STREET]* |
| 25 | Litter ruined yellow-flowered plant (9) | TORMENTIL | T_R_E_TIL | [LITTER]* |
| 28 | Transactions by modern art organisation swathed in hostile complexity (9) | INTRICACY | I_TRICACY | TR(ansactions) ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) in ICY (hostile) |
| 29 | Die after missing Bishop’s signal (3) | CUE | CUE | CUBE (die) ¬ B(ishop) |
| 30 | Mostly resisted changing mysterious beliefs (9) | ESOTERISM | ES_TERIS_ | [RESISTE(d)]* |
| Down | ||||
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay | |
| 3 | Indian dress length – cross about that (5) | CHOLI | CH_LI | L(ength) in CHI (cross) |
| 7 | Something posted in temporary accommodation is promotional material (7) | HANDOUT | HA_D_UT | AD (something posted) in HUT (temporary accommodation) |
| 19 | Pagan outraged at a Bible (though not one book) (7) | BAALITE | BAALITE | [AT A BIBLE]* ¬ B(ook) |
| 23 | Locations of new life in outer islands (5) | UTERI | UTERI | (o)UTER I(slands) |
| 1st Quarter | ||||
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay | |
| 9 | Shimmering glare interrupting those people below a locally bright horizon (12, 2 words) | WEATHER GLEAM | ATHER GLEAM | [GLARE]* in THEM (those people) after A |
| 27 | Edward spurns sesame seed from Italian city (8) | SIENNESE | BENNESE | BENNE (sesame) SEED ¬ ED(mund) |
| 22 | Dupe accepting new bribe (4) | BUNG | MUNG | MUG (dupe) around N(ew) |
| 21 | Crazy to abandon first two Greek weights (4) | MNAS | NANAS | (ba)NANAS (crazy) |
| 8 | Take exam on work covering the highest level (4) | ATOP | SITOP | SIT (take exam) OP (work) |
| 2 | Tolerate stale stuff around one protuberance near beak (8) | NARICORN | WEARICORN | WEAR (tolerate) CORN (stale stuff) around I (one) |
| 3rd Quarter | ||||
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay | |
| 14 | Sharp point presented by end of poniard (4) | ACID | ACMED | ACME (point) (poniar)D |
| 15 | Gull at sea, flying around vasty deep, ultimately (8, 2 words) | EASY MEAT | EASY PAT | [AT SEA]* around (vast)Y (dee)P |
| 24 | In boutique see me upset list of items (4) | MENU | MEESEU | (boutiq)UE SEE M(e) rev. |
| 4 | Coin slots beginning to sound odd – ear trouble? (12) | OTOSCLEROSIS | OTOSCLNSIS | [COIN SLOTS S(ound)]* |
| 16 | Student calls for attention, having collected seaweed on the way back (4) | SOPH | SOEROH | HOS (calls for attention) around ORE< (seaweed) |
| 6 | Dodgy service picked up electronic member of Royal Family in virtual reality technique (12) | TELEPRESENCE | TELEPRINCE | LET< (dodgy service) E(lectronic) PRINCE (member of Royal Family) |
| Full | ||||
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay | |
| 26 | Control movement of replica human (4) | REIN | ALPHANUMERIC | [REPLICA HUMAN]* |
| 1 | Number probing articles about letters and figures (12) | ALPHANUMERIC | ANOA | NO (number) in A+A (articles) |
| 5 | Removal of visionary piano rolls containing source of every note (8) | VATICIDE | PLENISTS | P(iano) LISTS (rolls) around E(very) N(ote) |
| 17 | Opponents of vacuums favouring some, after one line’s discontinued (8) | PLENISTS | PRONOTAL | PRO (favouring) NOT ALL (some) ¬ L(ine) |
| 12 | Where Indonesians will trap wild ox (4) | ANOA | REIN | (whe)RE IN(donesians) |
| 11 | See to restrict a sudden movement around part of insect (8) | PRONOTAL | VATICIDE | VIDE (see) around A TIC (sudden movement) |
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I disagree. This was a tough one and indeed a bit of a slog, but a slog like a long walk across the moors in driving rain, but with the prospect of a warm pub at the end of it, is a slog. I didn’t really have time over the weekend, so attempted it in brief snatches over the week, making very slow progress – a couple of clues at a time. It wasn’t until Friday evening that I really had a chance to go at it properly but everything eventually began to come together and I finished it before the next week’s offering was delivered to my bed. There did seem a slight artificiality to the way the different sets of clues were constructed, but I enjoyed the little pdms that came with this and I’m not sure that paying more attention to the language than astronomical detail is exactly a criticism in a crossword!
I seem to be on a downward spiral with Phi. My first puzzle of his, in March this year, was in fact my first Inquisitor: an enjoyable and satisfying puzzle called ‘Unsatisfying’ that got me hooked on these things. I got on well too with his next puzzle, ‘Northern Lights’, until my failure to find the well-hidden theme left me with no endgame to enjoy.
This puzzle really was unsatisfying, I’m sorry to say. With a little practice I got used to the idea that a thematic clue yields both a proper word of known length and a non-word of unknown length from different parts of the clue, but I didn’t enjoy solving these clues, or the fact that their solutions were just jigsaw pieces rather than grid entries. No doubt the ‘phase-shifting’ would eventually become more of a help than a hindrance, but meanwhile, with not enough in the grid to help me get more clues (both thematic and non-thematic), solving was no fun at all (a ‘slog’, in fact, to use OPatrick’s word), and I decided to stop.
It was more the puzzle design than the clueing that got between me and a proper solve on this occasion. I echo the blogger’s phrase ‘more like work than pleasure’.
Thanks anyway to Phi for a clever idea, which I had no opportunity to appreciate fully, and thanks to HolyGhost for his interesting introductory comments. (I haven’t studied the solution.)
I’ve just read the blog and, I have to say, I’m none the wiser.
As H___G____ says, not one of Phi’s best. 🙁
Well, there’s now my setter’s blog to consult. I always thought this might be a hard one to work through – if it’s any consolation (and I guess it won’t be) the logistics at my end were pretty darn complicated too.
http://phionline.net.nz/setters-blogs/inquisitor-1560-phase-shift/
I enjoyed this but it was tough! I tried to manage without the using word-search facility in the dictionary but in the end I had to give up. I wondered about the connection to the actual moon for a while, especially the “full moon” phase which comes between 1st and 3rd quarters so I tried to find substitutions for the middle letters. In the end I decided the astronomical moon was irrelevant and “phases of the moon” was just a linguistic device to form the basis for a puzzle. That’s fine with me, deducing such things is part of what solving the IQ is all about.
With the help of an electronic Chambers I filled the grid correctly and had some of the 1st and 3rd phase shifts sorted but in the end I ran out of steam. Once the grid is complete and there is no endgame I often lose interest in retrospectively explaining every detail of each clue. I do enough of that when I am blogging puzzles, it feels a luxury to be able to just bung in the answers sometimes!
I wonder if the person writing the IQ blog gets a slightly different impression from rest of the solvers. They don’t get the option to think “that was fun” and put it down only mostly explained, they have to persevere to the bitter end regardless. Hence a higher proportion of “felt like hard work” thoughts from the bloggers than the rest of the commenters.
Thank you to HG and Phi.
Alan B, Phi’s and kenmac’s comments have just crossed with my earlier comment on “hard work” @ 5 which I was expecting to appear @2. It seems that today the blogger’s feeling on “hard work/slog “is not so different today. Not the best day to put forward my theory!
To paraphrase the Monty Pythin ‘Australian Wino’ sketch: ‘…this is not a puzzle for solving, this is a puzzle for laying down and avoiding…’
After several attempts at understanding the rubric and the different phases etc., I filed this under WPB and turned to a bottle of vino istead…kudos to HG for the blog, and anyone else who got there in the end…
(‘Python’ – where was the spiel-chekker?)
All thanks to Phi and HG. This one certainly took longer than usual. I got the hang of the Full Moon clues early on — by seeing ALPHANUMERIC as an anagram in the first, followed by its definition in the next — and guessed from STALE(M)ATE that “Dark of the Moon” clues would omit M for Moon in the wordplay, which was on the right track. Very much liked the LITTER anagram yielding TORMENTIL.
But the 1Q and 3Q clues made me feel, er, swathed in hostile complexity. I eventually sorted them out from the definitions and only afterwards worked out the detailed 1Q transpositions, which was enough of a chore that I lazily took 3Q on trust.
Phi @4
Thanks for popping in.
I followed your link and read your interesting ‘story’ there relating to this puzzle. As an occasional amateur setter I know how challenging it is to make everything work and make everything fit to one’s own satisfaction, let alone the solvers’.
The main thing that stopped my progress and made me stop trying this puzzle (unlike OPatrick I don’t spend too much time ‘slogging’ for future rewards!) was the fact that we had to mess around with the Across and Down clues (or at least some of them) as well as the ‘phased’ ones, and the instruction for those clues was so vague (deliberately so, of course). Also, I don’t get along too well with jigsaw crosswords in general, although I expected to be up to that particular challenge if the other obstacle I have just described wasn’t there.
This one was not my cup of tea, but I enjoyed the two earlier ones from you that I have attempted since March, as I said in my earlier comment. (It was a bit of bad luck that stopped me from identifying the theme in ‘Northern Lights’.) It is often the standard of clueing that I get most satisfaction from – the theme is often there to make the solving experience different and uniquely interesting every time and make it worth the solving effort.
I took a taxi to the warm pub over the rainy moors (see @1) by hardly bothering with the exchanges at all, working first from definitions and then using the unaffected parts of the wordplay to find words that fit the definitions and letter patterns in the grid. Once I’d filled the grid my conscience got the better of me and I did work out the parsing of the clues, but of course that was easy with a complete set of answers.
I didn’t get the significance of the dropped letters of MOON from the “normals”. Initially it looked like we’d get several jumbles of the word MOON, which fits the idea of “new moon”, but when that didn’t work I failed to pick up on the idea that a new moon is invisible.
If there is a weakness to this puzzle, it’s that the puzzle can be completed without appreciating the hard work the setter put into creating it. I was surprised that we weren’t required to enter the mutilated answers, so that we had to work them all out. Still, this was much more to my taste than puzzles requiring long internet searches to find TV programs from the 1980s!
Phi – thanks for the explanation of how the puzzle was created. I forgot to mention how delightful were some of the “words” derived from the wordplay. I was disappointed to find that phrases such as WEARICORN, TELEPRINCE, ATHER GLEAM and EASY PAT didn’t mean anything. They should do, I may well start using them from time to time.
A puzzle where I had no idea how it could be solved “properly”. So, having guessed ALPHANUMERIC and spotted where it could go, I proceeded to try and spot definitions, bits of wordplay, and where it all might fit. I ended up with a full grid, but it didn’t feel like one of my finest moments, having basically ignored most of the preamble.
A very similar experience to many of the above, with the grid filled in but not much the wiser – and not too bothered – about what was going on.
For my part, I appreciated the brain-scrambling challenge here. I could see it was going to be a tough one, so I just did a little each day, took my time, and each session seemed to land about three answers. It’s true that the word ‘work’ did come to mind with the 1st and 3rd quarters, but it was a real breakthrough to understand that full was not 4th. Having entered ‘rillsides’ for ‘hillsides’ at 13a, and ‘anas’ for ‘mnas’ at 21a, 1 down naturally defeated me. Thanks to Phi for the stiff hike, and HolyGhost for explaining the missing moons.
Well done to those who persevered and completed this. I had real difficulty even understanding what was required and given the apparent lack of any endgame to enjoy I opted out.
Like many of the Inquisitor crosswords, this took me nearly the full two weeks to work out (I call that value for money!), and I appreciated the jigsaw style puzzle, though my head hurt at times! With the help of the usual reference books – and it was a bit of a slog at times- I managed to get everything except “Soph” – I had “_oph” but didn’t see anything but Qoph as a word. Silly to miss it as a word for a student, but I was desperately trying to justify using the old favourite, L,for that, and to look for “loph” as a word – heigh ho! It was a hard to very hard but intriguing solve and I have learnt a little more about moon phases in the process, not knowing previously that the new moon is invisible. Thank you Phi!