Inquisitor 1569: Hit And Miss by Penumbra

22 comments on “Inquisitor 1569: Hit And Miss by Penumbra”

1. Re 29d, I had

   F[a]N (blower) minus A[osta] containing HOT (heat) reversed.

   Thanks setter and blogger

2. Thanks for the blog. You’ve made this all sound much more straightforward than when I battled my way through it!  I found it quite tricky in places, even though I’d worked out the reverse entries.  Did 29 Down involve Fohn sounds like Phone, Blower?

3. I enjoyed this, a long steady solve that had several small PDMs to keep me going, it revealed itself a little at a time.  I initially put in antivenom too, I must have been mistakenly using this word word for years.  I made a bigger fool of myself by taking an age to guess the upper of the two theme words: I had worked out that the bottom one was IDENTICAL TWIN, so what could the top one be…?

   I wondered about Maori strut since DWANG is obviously Scottish in origin.  A New Zealand word yes, but Maori?

   I would be interested to know what the title means too.

   Thanks to Penumbra and Duncan.

4. Very entertaining and a fine debut. The clues yielded their solutions without too much difficulty (that doesn’t mean they were easy) although it took me ages to get DWANG. My parsing of FOHN agrees with Kenmac @1.

   I don’t really understand the title either. I took it to mean that some answers went in correctly (in the right direction) and others didn’t, but that’s weak and there’s no doubt more to it than that. Perhaps greater minds than mine will enlighten?

5. Cruciverbophile @4 Hollies’ hit song and Miss Holly G. Thanks, Duncan, and thanks to Penumbra for the memories.

6. An enjoyable solve, though it took me an age to spot the word to highlight – for me first thought was green, as a holly surely is? I still don’t see how the theme holds together though. Why is the “confession” an inadequacy? How is the identical twins stuff linked to the hollies?

7. Jon – the Hollies can’t tell the bottom (grid entry) from the top (grid entry).  That is because they are IDENTICAL TWINS.

8. Hi PeeDee. And then we need to find another holly? Perhaps it was all just a little loosely knit for me, a few disparate elements that sort of fit together.

9. I really enjoyed this. As PeeDee says it had several small PDMs and I thought the standard of cluing very high

10. Surely the “appropriate colour” for ILEX is green, since holly is an evergreen tree/shrub with (with scarlet or yellow berries).

    Thanks to kenmac @1, seconded by cruciverbophile @4, for the wordplay for FOHN – I struggled then gave up.

    I think that “Girl with Dorothea’s make-up” in 5d indicates that THEODORA and DOROTHEA are both derived from the Greek “gift of God”.

    Duncan: in 3d, the reason that ISN’T = “fails to remain unchanged” is from “to be” meaning “to remain without change”.

    Thanks to all, but I’m another who remains somewhat baffled by the title. Maybe Penumbra will let us know …

     

11. Contrary to Jon@8, I found the loosely knit themes most appealing; the three types of Hollies (stupidly, at one point, I googled Buddy Golightly) and the humour of the top and bottom lines. I very much liked the slow way this one pieced together; in fact I thought it one of the best of the year.

12. Thanks to all who have demonstrated a much better parsing of FOHN

    Obviously the title is taxing a few more people than just me.

13. PS – I also think the shading surely has to be green

14. Welcome Penumbra, and thanks for an excellent puzzle. I’ve little to add to what’s already been said above: multiple PDMs and a pleasure to work through. ANTIVENOM was my first one in (wrongly) so I too got held up in the top right before that was fixed.

    I’m glad that a few others said that they coloured ILEX green – me too, but after seeing the blog I started to doubt myself.

    Thanks Duncan for the blog.

15. In 2a India is “(in international radio communication) a code word for the letter i.”

    I would have coloured ILEX green. I don’t send in an entry because the prize doesn’t seem worth the number of second class stamps needed to give a reasonable chance of winning it. Does the i count the entries received?

    Thanks to Penumbra and to Duncan.

16. PeeDee @3’s first paragraph sums it up for me too.

    As for the title, surely NormanLF@5 is correct? It’s as simple as that.

    Thanks to Duncan and welcome and thanks to Penumbra.

17. BTW, I also struggled with FOHN and ISNT. My initial choice for 3D was INST, which fits the definition nicely as it changes from month to month, but having decided that ANTIVENIN must be right, I had to opt for ISNT. Did anyone else take this route? I am sure HG’s explanation is correct.

18. I’m pleased that my Inquisitor debut has been well received, although clearly there are some queries I must try to resolve.

    It was difficult to think of a title that covered all the elements of the puzzle, so I plumped for one that acknowledged the HIT record and hinted at the HIT AND MISS method of entering the down answers, half of them correctly and half inverted, as well as the difficulty of telling one IDENTICAL TWIN from another. I wish I had thought of MISS Golightly too, and I’m glad that NormanLinF@5 spotted it.

    To answer Duncan’s clue-specific point about 23ac, it was intended to be read as an &lit construction but also – which was perhaps rather precious – to be an unsignposted thematic hint.  (See IDENTICAL TWINs in Chambers.)  There were three of these hints, the other two being 10dn (‘Carol’s festive partner’) and 11dn (‘no bottom or top’).

    Kenmac@1 has parsed 29dn with absolute precision – another &lit that evolved over several days of determined concentration. Elsewhere, a liberty was taken at 1dn to create the surface image of the haka.

    Thank you Duncan and all who have commented.

19. Duncan, I for India in 2d: see Chambers “India (in international radio communication) a code word for the letter i.” (Not that uncommon I think.)

20. HG – that was mentioned earlier, see post 15.

21. A long steady solve indeed and very enjoyable, thank you Penumbra. Like others I struggled with Fohn and didn’t manage to complete that one or Naoi @2d – despite having three letters out of four! Eoan is a new word for me, but I am armed with it now, ready for next time a synonym for dawn suggests itself… one day perhaps!

22. As the time has probably come to make my final contribution here, let me say again that I’m pleased the puzzle worked, for most solvers, with uncertainty and frustration confined to a small number of clues.  However, I refrained from revealing before the solution was published that my intended ‘appropriate’ colour was green, not red.  My mental image as I wrote the preamble was of the holly as an evergreen, the berries (of whatever hue) being temporary adornments.  Should I have said ‘the most appropriate’ colour?  It really is a shame when ambiguity spoils a puzzle; I apologise to those who made the wrong call.

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