This is Wan’s fourth puzzle in the Inquisitor series. I found it very challenging
There was a very lengthy preamble, which read "Cardinal points (N, S, E and W) are missing from four across and four down clues, all other clues are normal
Assuming the clues run N-S from 1ac to 31dn, the eight letters immediately W of the missing points when read from N-S, and the eight immediately E when read from S-N describe some travellers, to be found in the final grid.
In order to see them all, solvers must change two symmetrical letters; the two new entries will give guidance for submission (which is contrary to actual events)
The two symmetrical partners of those entries must be changed to give a more familiar name for the travellers.
The travellers must be appropriately highlighted, and an associated name appearing in a closed loop must also be highlighted (34 contiguous cells in total).
Some entries leave empty cells in the grid, numbers in brackets show number of cells available"
Well, there is a lot of information in there, some of which won’t make much sense until the grid is filled.
It took me a number of sessions to fill the grid and I think I have got the parsing sussed for all but one which is 4d. I’m fairly sure that the entry is EMMANUEL and I reckon I have got a semi-sensible parsing, but as it involves inverting a W to get an M I’m not entirely sure I have got it right. Perhaps I am trying to enter a missing cardinal point into the wrong clue.
I reckon the missing points were in the following clues;
| Clue Number | Changed text | Inserted point | West Letter | East Letter |
| 6a | STIFF SOCIAL –> STIFFS SOCIAL |
S |
F |
S |
| 18a | A TAR ESCAPING –> A TARE ESCAPING |
E |
R |
E |
| 22a | LIE ON A –> LINE ON A |
N |
I |
E |
| 32a | NET AFTER –> NEWT AFTER |
W |
E |
T |
| 4d | STOLEN AN –> STOLEN W AN |
W |
N |
A |
| 9d | TURNED ON –> TURNED SON |
S |
D |
O |
| 21d | REGAL LIBERAL –> REGALE LIBERAL |
E |
L |
L |
| 23d | HOMELY FORWARD –> HOMELYN FORWARD |
N |
Y |
F |
I’m unsure about the rewriting of 4d but I can’t see anywhere more sensible that the W can go to give me an N before and A after. It is this W I have inverted [upset] to form an M to help me to parse EMMANUEL
Following the preamble, we get the phrase FRIENDLY FLOATEES. I suspect I wasn’t the only solver to whom the phrase meant nothing. I therefore resorted to some online research to see if there were any helpful references. In the end I relied on the Wikipedia reference at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_Floatees to help me. There I learnt about the storm that caused a container of some 28,800 FRIENDLY FLOATEES to be washed overboard into the Pacific Ocean. The container and the product packaging were further damaged such that the FLOATEES individually were cast upon the water. As they had no air holes they did not fill up with water and sink, and therefore they stayed on the surface to be taken by the currents to distant shores. I also learnt that the FLOATEES comprised [YELLOW] DUCKS, [GREEN] FROGS, [RED] BEAVERS and [BLUE] TURTLES, all of which can be seen in the grid in almost symmetrical grid patterns radiating from the centre. The patterns do display mirror symmetry about the vertical centre line.
To see the BEAVERS and FROGS it is necessary to change the second O of NO-NO at 5 down to an E, and the symmetrically placed M of MADE at 29 down to an F, thereby forming NONE and FADE. This instruction NONE FADE tells us not to ignore any of the colours of the FLOATEES when making the submission. In reality, the colours on the DUCKS and BEAVERS FADED to white, while the TURTLES and FROGS retained their colours.
The preamble also required us to change the remaining two remaining grid entries symmetrical with MADE / FADE and NO-NO /NONE. The grid displays quarter turn symmetry, so we had to look at 18 across and 27 across. Here we can change HATE to BATH and DOSS to TOYS to give BATH TOYS as that is what the FRIENDLY FLOATEES are. Changing these two entries also change HANDSAWS to BANDSAWS and SACK to YACK, thus still retaining real words in the grid.
Finally we were left with finding the closed loop holding the associated name. Given that the highlighted letters had to be contiguous, it was fairly clear that the loop was going to fill the gap between the radiating toys. This indicated EVER LAUREL, the name of the ship that was carrying the containers into the storm.. The name begins at the first letter of 26 down and runs in a clockwise manner round to the second L of NEWEL LS. In all, 34 cells are highlighted, as can be seen in the second grid below.
The coloured pattern serves to highlight the unfilled two cell space that presumably represents the missing container of FRIENDLY FLOATEES.
The Wikipedia article tells more about how scientists have made use of TOYS to map and understand ocean currents as the FLOATEES washed up in various parts of the world, after many years in some cases.
This was a very impressive grid construction with its various symmetrical elements.
I found many of the clues to be difficult to crack initially, particularly as very few exact dictionary definitions were used for both component parts and entries. That’s fair enough as it makes solvers think laterally. There were some innovative cluing techniques. Although I have come across the use of prime numbers to indicate specific letters before, it still took me ages to parse SURVEYOR 17 down) properly . There were a couple of clues where a letter had to be removed from a constituent part, but there were two occurrences of the letter and the clue didn’t explicitly indicate which one should go.
The use of the clues rather than the grid to highlight the message was also a change from the normal methods.
I liked the clues for UMBRA, ANORAK and EARRINGS. I reckon ANORAK can be parsed two different ways with two different seaweeds, NORI and ORE the first using A for one and the second using AN for one.
I noted the use of three of the cardinal points West (6 across), North, (15 down) and South (22 across) in the clues. I haven’t spotted East, although it can be used as a description of the MELTEMI wind (10 across) as an Eastern Mediterranean wind.
The initial grid looked like this
After the adjustment described above and the application of colours, the final grid looked like this. I have coloured the background to cells as the means of highlighting. Colouring the letters will no doubt be equally acceptable.
The title, TO THE FOUR CORNERS describes figuratively the actual distribution of the bath toys on the ocean, as well as accurately describing the directions in the grid taken by the DUCKS, FROGS, TURTLES and BEAVERS.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. |
Clue Amended Clue |
String | Wordplay | Entry |
| 1 | Veg used by American bishop slicing each in bread rolls (8, 2 words) |
[BP {bishop} contained in {slicing} EA {each}]) itself contained in (in) (NANS [type of slightly leavened bread, as baked in Indian and Pakistani cookery, similar to pitta bread]) all reversed (rolls) (SN (A (P B) E) AN)< |
SNAP BEAN A North American variety of bean [vegetable] with edible pods) |
|
| 6 |
Richmond stiff social class avoids the West End (4) Richmond stiffs social class avoids the West End (4) |
stiff –> stiffs FSS |
TOFFS (people of the upper classes, especially wealthy and smartly dressed) excluding (avoids) T (left hand letter of [West End of] THE) OFFS |
OFFS (kills [American [Richmond, Virginia] slang for kills; stiffs can mean murder, so OFFS and stiffs are synonymous) |
| 10 | Returned saw used to cut trees short in wind (7) |
MET (saw) reversed (returned) contained in (used to cut) MELIA (genus of trees including the nim or margosa) excluding the final letter (short) A MEL (TEM<) I |
MELTEMI (a seasonal wind of the Eastern Mediterranean) |
|
| 12 | An unreliable person slipping right into a sleep (4) |
ROVER (an inconstant person; an unreliable person) excluding (slipping) R (right) Obviously it is the first R that is removed to give the required answer but there is no specific indication as to which R is involved. OVER |
OVER ([into a] sleep; OVER is in Bradfords as a synonym for sleep) | |
| 13 | Shade whole front, cutting out sun wherever it appears (5) |
SUM (total; whole) + BRASS (effrontery; front) excluding all three occurrences of (cutting out … wherever it appears) S (sun) UM BRA |
UMBRA (shadow; shade) | |
| 14 | One catches high earners dropping ecstasy (6) |
Anagram of (high) EARNERS excluding (dropping) E (ecstasy [tablet]) In this case, either E could be dropped SNARER* |
SNARER (trapper; catcher) | |
| 16 | Colours almost as if on a drop of acid (5) |
A (first letter of [drop of] ACID) + QUASI (as if, as it were) excluding the final letter (almost) I A QUAS |
AQUAS (pale blue colours) | |
| 18 |
Despise a tar escaping from the more distant base (4) Despise a tare escaping from the more distant base (4) |
tar –> tare REE |
THAT (more distant) excluding (escaping) T (tare) + E (base of natural logarithms) Again it’s obvious which T has to be excluded to get the answer, but as earlier for the R in ROVER, there is no specific indication of which T to remove. HAT E |
HATE (despise) |
| 19 | Left to wear plastic shield when confronting old sword (5) |
(L [left] contained in [to wear] BIB [plastic shield but on a young child’s chin]) + O (old) BI (L) B O |
BILBO (rapier or sword) | |
| 21 | Gave a degree to Spenser perhaps, after academy dons inducement (9) |
(A [academy] contained in [dons] LURE [enticement; inducement]) + AT (to) + ED (reference EDmund Spenser [1553 – 1599], English poet beloved of crossword setters for his many poetic words that are variants on traditional English) L (A) URE AT ED |
LAUREATED (conferred a degree upon) | |
| 22 |
Ed’s latest doobreys lie on a column facing south (9) Ed’s latest doobreys line on a column facing south (9) |
lie –> line INE |
NEWEL (the upright column around which the steps of a circular staircase wind) + L (line) + S (south) NEWEL L S |
NEWELLS (Spenserean word for new thing [without specifying a name for the thing], a bit like DOOBREYS [things whose name is unknown or temporarily forgotten, what’s-its-names]) entered as NEWEL LS i.e. with two spaces between the Ls |
| 24 | Cloth worker when around runs cloth machine (5) |
DYER (cloth worker, adding DYE to cloth) containing (when around) R (runs) D (R) YER |
DRYER (machine for DRYing cloth) | |
| 27 | Work stops on vacation to lead an idle life (4) |
DO (work) + SS (letters remaining in STOPS when the central letters TOP are removed [on vacation]) DO SS |
DOSS (lead an idle life) | |
| 30 | Misguided Carol holds daughter back (5, 2 words) |
(NOEL [carol] containing [holds] D [daughter]) all reversed (back) (LE (D) ON)< |
LED ON (persuaded to do something foolish; misguided) | |
| 32 |
One local’s net after casting is full of seaweed, almost forming a coat (6) One local’s newt after casting is full of seaweed, almost forming a coat (6) |
net –> newt EWT |
(AN [one] + ASK [dialect {local word for newt} excluding {after casting} ‘S {shortened form of is}) containing (full of) ORE (type of seaweed) excluding the final letter (almost) E AN (OR) AK Alternatively A [one] + ASK [dialect {local word for newt} excluding {after casting} ‘S {shortened form of is}) containing (full of) NORI [type of seaweed] excluding the final letter [almost] I A (NOR) AK |
ANORAK (a usually hooded waterproof outer jacket) |
| 33 | Designer juices – gallons for Sweden (5) |
SUCCI (juices) with G (gallons) replacing (for) S (International Vehicle Registration for Sweden) G UCCI |
GUCCI (reference Guccio GUCCI [1881 – 1953], Italian designer, founder of the fashion house that bears his name) | |
| 34 | Irritated when Albania flies a kite in Scotland (4) |
GALLED (irritated) excluding (when … flies) AL (International Vehicle Registration for Albania) GLED |
GLED (Scottish word for the common kite) | |
| 35 | Brief reminder to inject hormone shot (7, 2 words) |
EPO (erythropoietin, a hormone) contained in (to inject) TOKEN (anything serving as a reminder) excluding the final letter (briefly) N TO (E PO) KE |
TOE POKE (shot struck at full stretch with the end of the foot) |
|
| 36 | Short hair and cropped heads making a comeback (4) |
PATES (heads) excluding the first letter (cropped) P and then reversed (making a comeback) SETA< |
SETA (bristle; short hair) | |
| 37 | Maybe two drops or so in golf are in order when balls are lost (8) |
Anagram of (are in order) OR SO IN and G (Golf is international radio communication codeword for the letter G) and ARE excluding all the Os [when all the balls are lost) EARRINGS* |
EARRINGS (jewellery that drops from each EAR [two drops]) | |
|
Down |
||||
| 1 | Nick mobile parts to try and sell dishonestly (4) |
M (mobile, often used when listing a mobile phone number) contained in (parts) SUG (to attempt to sell a product while purporting to be engaged in market research) S (M) UG |
SMUG (steal; nick) | |
| 2 | An instrument to turn metal (6) |
A [an] + TABLA [Indian percussion instrument]) all reversed (to turn) (ALBAT A)< |
ALBATA (variety of German silver; metal) | |
| 3 | Capital only bottles two-thirds of water (5) |
BUT (as an adverb, only) contains (bottles) EA (two letters of [two thirds of the three] EAU [water]) B (EA) UT |
BEAUT (excellent; wonderful; capital) | |
| 4 |
European money and antique stolen an upset for a fella (9) European money and antique stolen wan upset for a fella (9) |
stolen –> stolen w NWA |
E (European) + (LEU [standard monetary unit of Romania and Moldova; money] + NAM [obsolete {antique] word for stolen]) + W) all reversed (upset; down clue) with the W being upset in an additional way to form an M E (M^ MAN UEL)< I know that parsing looks a bit bizarre but it’s the best I can come up with |
EMMANUEL (man’s name; fella) entered as EMMANU EL i.e. with one space |
| 5 | A Kray and his twin both missing right flip flop (4) |
(RON (RONnie [Kray], one of two brothers, infamous for being gangsters in London in the 1950s and 1960s] excluding (missing) R [right] + RON [RONnie Kray’s had a physical twin named Reggie, but in the crossword world, a twin can be the same word again] also excluding (missing) R [right]) all reversed (flip) (NO-NO)< |
NO-NO (failure; flop) | |
| 7 | Run wild on holidays losing oneself (5) |
FERIAL (relating to holidays) excluding (losing) I (oneself) FERAL |
FERAL (run wild) | |
| 8 | Entry charge includes drink served up on the house (7) |
FEE (entry charge) containing (includes) BEER (drink) reversed (served up; down clue) F (REEB<) EE |
FREEBEE (something supplied FREE of charge; on the house) | |
| 9 |
Turned scared on taking over plants (8) Turned scared son taking over plants (8) |
on –> son DSO |
Anagram of (turned) SCARED and S (son) containing (taking) O (over) SARC (O) DES* |
SARCODES (the Californian snow-plant genus; plants |
| 11 | Mike’s predecessor cheated endlessly on the way up (4) |
BAMMED (cheated) excluding the first and last letters (endlessly) B and D reversed (on the way up; down clue) EMMA< |
EMMA (formerly, a signaller’s name for the letter. Nowadays MIKE is the international radio communication codeword for that letter; Mike’s predecessor) |
|
| 15 | Ships about to go north to get Strongbow for the Earl of Pembroke? (5) |
(SAIL [ships collectively] + A [about]) all reversed (to go north; down clue) (A LIAS)< |
ALIAS (assumed name; also known as; STRONGBOW was the name by Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke [1130 – 1176] is best known) | |
| 17 | He oversees French on prisons or prime locations of every criminal (9) |
SUR (French for ‘on’) containing (prisons) (an anagram of [criminal] OR and VEY [letters 2, 3 and 5 {prime numbers} of EVERY]) SU (RVEYO*) R |
SURVEYOR (one who oversees) entered as SUR VEYOR i.e. with one space |
|
| 18 | Tools although square are used to slice fruit (8) |
(AND [although] + S [square]) contained in (HAWS [fruit of the HAWthorn]) H (AND S) AWS |
HANDSAWS (tools) | |
| 20 | Letter about organised group creates disorder (7) |
DEE (letter D) containing (RAN [organised] + G [group as in G8,G10 [Group of eight, ten] etc) DE (RAN G) E |
DERANGE (disorder) | |
| 21 |
Regal liberal leaving government; he’s not truthful to Holyrood (5) Regale liberal leaving government; he’s not truthful to Holyrood (5) |
regal –> regale LEL |
Anagram of (liberal) REGALE excluding (leaving) G (government) LEEAR* |
LEEAR (Scottish [Holyrood] word for liar [an untruthful person]) |
| 23 |
Last of homely forward clubs, long out of bounds for Protestant (6) Last of homelyn forward clubs, long out of bounds for Protestant (6) |
homely –> homelyn YNF |
N (final letter of [last of] HOMELYN) + ON (forwards) + C (clubs) + ON (letters remaining in LONG when the bounding letters L and G are removed [out of bounds]) N ON C ON |
NON-CON (Nonconformist [usually applied in England to a Protestant separated from the Church of England]) |
| 25 | Well up on toilet occasionally, softened emotionally by Ed (5) |
MY! (gosh!; well!) reversed (up; down clue) + OLT (letters 2, 4 and 6 [occasionally] of TOILET) YM< OLT |
YMOLT (Edmund Spenser’s [Ed’s] word for melted [soften emotionally]) | |
| 26 | Cutting instrument cut top-off grave-slab (5) |
LEDGER (flat grave-slab) excluding the first letter (cut top off) L EDGER |
EDGER (cutting tool used on the EDGE of a lawn to trim it)) | |
| 28 | Mark leaves a coaster for a mat (4) |
SMACK (small-decked coaster) excluding (leaves) M (mark) SACK |
SACK (mat) | |
| 29 | Had sex with spinster in an auditorium (4) |
MADE (sounds like [in an auditorium] MAID [spinster]) MADE |
MADE (had sex with) | |
| 31 | Spoils looks scratching face (4) |
SPIES (looks) excluding (scratching) the first letter (face) S PIES |
PIES (reduces to confusion; spoils) |
Parsing of 4D: There is a W missing at the beginning of ‘an’ in the clue, making Wan – the setters nom de plume. This leads to ‘me’ reversed to form the first two letters of the answer.
Extremely challenging indeed, and I was on the point of giving up from the very first day of solving, of which this took me several, though I got there in the end. The significance of “NONE FADE” sort of passed me by as I wasn’t aware that any of the toys had faded in the sea, so merrily (and as it turns out correctly) highlighted all four. Phew.
The clues were challenging indeed!
I had Decoyman’s way of parsing 4d EMMANUEL (Wan = me). I couldn’t parse NO-NO, but a friend gave me the parsing as blogged. Cryptic grammar, though, requires ‘its twin’, not ‘his twin’. His twin is Reg, but its twin can be Ron. In any case, the twins were known as Ronald and Reginald or Ronnie and Reggie, not Ron and Reg. (But I can’t push that argument too far having sampled Bill and Ed so many times and accepted them!)
Fantastic blog, Duncan, although there is a tiny typo in the entry for ANORAK, where ASK is a dialect word for newt, not for new. I agree that filling the grid was a real challenge, especially with not knowing where the empty cells would be. Thanks for parsing SURVEYOR, which baffled me.
For the second week running, we had LED ON as an answer. Both times I looked hard at the grid to see if WIMB was there, but it easn’t. Perhaps it will be in a couple of weeks?
Seeing Bilbo as an answer, and not yet having all the letters of Floatees, I wondered if the Friendly group would turn out to be a reference to The Lord of the Rings.
Given that this was a harder than average puzzle with many hoops to jump through, I think it would have been better to help us get started by blacking out the two middle squares.
Tony @5
Comment appreciated. I agree it would have been helpful to know where those blank cells are, but (1) that would have required a different and more wordy instruction not to treat those black cells as blocks and (2) setters hate giving anything away, and saying (vaguely) ‘some entries’ was therefore par for the course!
The clueing largely defeated me, so I bailed early on this one.
Tough indeed made tougher by my not being able to parse 18a and 32a so I was never sure I had identified the locations of the missing E and W correctly. In the event I did locate them correctly but, having convinced myself that “more distant” had to be FARTHER, couldn’t make the mental leap to THAT. I was parsing 32a correctly but was unsuccessful in trying to find a local name for newt from which I could cast “is”. I feel a bit aggrieved that there was no indication that an abbreviated form of “is” had to be “cast”.
Like bridgesong@4 I thought for a long while it had to be based on the The Hobbit (not Lord of the Rings) after spotting Bilbo in the grid. I thought the closed loop had to be around the gap in the middle and even did a Google search on Ever Laurel. If only I had scrolled to the bottom of the search results page I would have found a reference to Friendly Floatees and completed the puzzle several days earlier. In the end I did what I should have done much earlier and Googled Friendly Floatees itself, but I was never convinced that this was the correct phrase having not been able to parse 18a and 32a.
Many thanks to Duncan for another exemplary blog and to Wan for the challenge
This was a unique experience, I have to say. On my first attempt at this puzzle I managed to solve three clues and guess one other. There were some that I couldn’t understand, let alone solve, but rather than give up at that point I decided to try and complete just the bottom right corner, where my three definite solutions happened to be located. More then anything else, I wanted to prove to myself that I could solve these clues!
I succeeded in completing that mini-project – 11 clues in all, including 17d SURVEYOR – and got some satisfaction from doing so, but it took too long and wasn’t particularly enjoyable. I may have been able to continue a bit further, but with no prospect of an endgame I decided to stop.
I came back to the puzzle later and targeted the top left corner, although I had to cheat to get started on that with 11d EMMA (I phoned a friend). That gave me the crossers I needed (‘M’ and ‘A’) to complete that corner, mirroring the bottom right. Frustratingly, though, I had to leave NO-NO, which would have been solvable if I had ignored the wordplay and just used the definition and the crosser (the first N).
That was all I could accomplish, but I was fortunate to be able to continue courtesy of the same friend, who gave me all the answers I lacked so that I couid enjoy the endgame. It was rewarding to find the ‘bath toys’ that went ‘to the four corners’ of the grid and finally the name of the ship. I was impressed by the symmetry of the 34 shaded cells.
This is only the second time that Inquisitor clues have got the better of me, the first occasion being exactly a year ago in my early days of solving these puzzles. I’m more accustomed to being thwarted by thematic designs and obscure themes than by the clues.
There was something different about the general quality of the clues in this puzzle, compared to all other Inquisitor puzzles that I have attempted. Simplistically, I would describe many of them as being contrived to the point of being unclear – at least to me. I doubt that I could have finished the puzzle anyway, but I would have got further by abandoning my preferred solving style and proceeding instead to isolate the definition first (which can be tricky, of course), ignore the wordplay, and spend most of my solving time searching for possible answers to match the definition, retrofitting the wordplay as necessary and if possible. But that is not what I enjoy doing.
Thanks anyway to Wan for a clever construction around an interesting and original idea, and for a set of clues unlike anything I have experienced before (some of which I admit were very good). And thanks to Duncan for an excellent blog.
I really enjoyed the theme, and puzzle overall, but I thought that the clues were harder than they should/could have been bearing in mind the obscurity of the theme especially. For so many of the clues I had worked out what the answer must be before seeing how they worked. A few like that in a puzzle is one thing, but for me it was probably approaching around 50% of the clues I had that experience with. I did manage to parse all the clues in the end, but the last two I got were OVER (obscure meaning “into a sleep” in Chambers) and EDGER (based on definition of LEDGER in ODE). Both of those I’d already confirmed by the final grid before I located the definitions that made them work.
In the preamble, rather than “some entries” having blanks, I don’t see that it would have given much away to state how many entries, and would have given a bit more confidence earlier on.
Thanks to those who pointed out the WAN / ME relationship in the parsing of EMMANUEL. I should have seen that.
bridgesong@6 – thanks, typo corrected [twice]
A nice and inventive theme for a crossword spoiled by trying to make it too clever. I hate long and complex preambles, so didn’t even bother to start this.
Tough slogging indeed — days of increasingly manic staring at a blank grid, with all too few solved or guessed answers that I didn’t dare enter for fear that this was going to be one of those grids whose final instruction required us to replace all vowels with a carefully executed true-colour representation of the Mona Lisa. Well, I was feeling a bit that way at one stage …
Getting to the FFs involved some regrettable guesswork about likely places where compass points could be inserted in the remaining unsolved clues, but Google/Wikipedia then helped a lot. I was amazed to finish this at all. But the final grid was awfully pretty and let me play around with image-tweaking software, which is always soothing.
Thanks to Wan and duncanshiell.
I cannot recall disliking an Inquisitor puzzle more. Clues that were just ridiculously arcane in almost every part and a far from clear endgame. I could go on but best left unsaid for the sake of diplomacy.
This was a tough puzzle but totally fair. In the end you could parse all the clues and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge, even though it took me longer than the average IQ. Wan is to be congratulated on a superb grid with a beautiful symmetry.
Agree for the most part with Alan B and bingy. Very clever, absolutely. But the “let’s make every clue as impenetrable as possible” approach soon became wearisome. I’m glad some enjoyed the challenge, but for me this was a tedious slog that I was relieved to finish. Sorry I can’t be more positive.
I’d noted this as being ‘slow and hard’, but I don’t remember it being as impenetrably difficult as some here have suggested and my feelings towards it overall are positive. I enjoyed the PDM provided by Google (not a way I usually like to get my PDMs) when I searched for the improbable sounding ‘friendly floatees’ and although I thought there were a few clues and processes that were just a bit too contrived, I enjoyed the challenge. I didn’t parse 18a (‘that’ for ‘more distant’ didn’t even occur to me and I kept thinking of ‘tare’ as being a weed that needed digging out) or 32a (surely casting means shedding the skin? Or at least that’s what I had convinced myself of. I was even wondering if this should have had an E in it rather than a W to make ‘local NEET’, giving a
JAKE– a dialect word for lout or layabout). The NONE FADE didn’t seem to add anything or make a lot of sense. But plenty of positives to balance these out. I prefer not knowing how many or where the gaps are going to be and having the extra logical challenge.I thought this was a very complex puzzle rather than very tough. Like OPatrick I did not find it impenetrably difficult, though some of the clues took a while to tease out. There were enough easy clues to get me started (8, 9, 14,22, 29, 30, 34, 37) and I just worked around the entries for those. The NW was the toughest for me, and it took some searching to find some of the cardinal points I’d missed (notably 6 and 32 across, and 4 down).
I always feel that a tough puzzle should offer something at the end to reward the solver for the hours of solving. In this case there were rewards aplenty. The grid is jam-packed with thematic material, difficult to achieve in any grid, let alone one displaying 90-degree symmetry, then there were the changes that resulted in real words. Given the constraints it’s remarkable how few unusual or obscure words appear in the grid. Lots of great clues as well. Clueing in some Inquisitor puzzles is often a bit loose, but there was little to complain about here. I agree with Alan B’s comment on 5d, but that’s about it. I don’t agree with Tony’s comment that the empty cells should have been blacked out as a concession to the solver. It would have made nonsense of the crossing answers (therefore requiring a different grid) and would have been thematically inappropriate anyway.
I’m slightly on the other side of the fence from OPatrick and Andy Stewart @17 & 18. For me, this was the hardest Inquisitor since it moved to the i. I was doing OK until the NW corner, but became fixated on Mike’s predecessor being LIMA and gave up. I got help with that and restarted. Then I gave up a second time, until I learnt that another abbreviation for bishop is Bp in 1a. I can’t recall what stopped & then restarted me the third time, but I got there in the end – one week later.
I’ll readily admit that some of this was my fault – not reading the rubric properly and so looking for the letters adjacent to the missing NSEW in the grid instead of the clues; not taking the nudge in the title when trying to find the DUCKS and MROGS (later FROGS).
I think my frustration comes from clues such as that for EMMA. It seems that someone could have done a pattern match on ?AMME? to find an obscure word, or one with an uncommon meaning, and then weave a clue around that. And why use “fella” not “fellow” in 4d to suggest an informal name when EMMANUEL isn’t (but MANNY would be).
Anyway, thanks to Duncan & Wan – a neat grid indeed. But I’m glad it wasn’t my turn to blog – I think I would’ve been panicking.
After nearly two weeks of slogging away at the clues I have finally given up. I had maybe three-quarters of the clues solved but only three of the eight Cardinal points found. This was not enough to make any headway with the end game and get some help there.
Overall this puzzle was out of my league – very difficult and obscure clues with an obscure end-game. Well done to those who finished!
Thanks to Duncan and Wan.
PS – I’m another who got fixated on Mike’s predecessor being LIMA.
Excellent, thorough blog, Duncan.
Not much I can say really. I loved the theme and enjoyed working on the grid, but I seem to have messed up. I thought it would be interesting to introduce a new gimmick in the clues, which I felt was vaguely thematic, but that doesn’t seem to have gone down well. I thought NONE FADE would remove any ambiguity for the colouring, but even that seems to have been a wrong decision and complicated the endgame. I do enjoy setting tough clues, and I enjoy solving them too, but it is clear from comments that I went too far, certainly too far for the Inquisitor. All I can say is sorry to those who feel they wasted time on the puzzle.
Wan
HolyGhost @19
My earlier comment was quite long enough without going into the detail of 11d (EMMA), but I’d just like to say now that I had pretty much the same experience as you with LIMA. I wasn’t exactly fixated on thay wrong answer (after all, it didn’t parse), and it was only pencilled in, but what you said about that clue and others is similar to my own views.
John @22
Your comment is very much appreciated. I would just say that I wasn’t fazed by your ‘new gimmick’ in the clues, or by NONE FADE (which I understood and found to be confirmatory). It was more the choices you made for elements of the wordplay that put much of this puzzle out of my reach. But I acknowledge that for many solvers these were just ‘tough clues’ – not insuperable. If another puzzle from Wan were to come along I shall dread it less as a result of your comment and will not give up at the start!
John @ 22 – the puzzle being “out of my league” is not meant as a criticism: not being able to finish every time is one of the things that keeps the IQ interesting for me,. I still enjoy trying, please don’t dumb down your puzzles just for the sake of it. Thanks again.
Re #22, I don’t think there is any reason for an apology here. I did not tackle this puzzle but it would have been passed by a very experienced crossword editor and his helpers. As reported above by the blogger and many of those commenting, the puzzle, while clearly very hard, was capable of being correctly solved. Nor was there any suggestion, I think, that clues were faulty. Also the idea seems to have been quite novel which is always welcome.
John @22 – likewise, please don’t read this that I didn’t enjoy the puzzle overall, more that it would have been more enjoyable a solving experience for me personally if the wordplay were easier to parse in many of the clues. I understood NONE FADE and quite liked the gimmick to find FRIENDLY FLOATEES in the first place. One example of what I did mean. I actually liked “Mike’s predecessor” as a definition to clue EMMA which was at the back of my mind as an alternative rather than LIMA from early on. The trouble was that there are a lot of possibilities for “cheated” though, and “endlessly” could mean first and last letters or just last letter removed. To confirm the answer I waded through a long list of synonyms of “cheated” until something fitted.
My wife and I were away when this came out, so printed out the puzzle when we returned, and had a real battle with it. Solved all the clues except 12a (Didn’t spot ‘into a sleep’ as a definition for ‘over’) and 31d (again, failed to spot the rather obscure ‘spoils’ as ‘pies’). We solved 32a but without understanding the parsing. I did think that ‘casting is’ was a bit of a cheat for losing an ‘s’ when I read the blog. We identified the friendly floatees, and after searching for Harris and George and Montmorency, and then for all the waves in the Hobbit we found the wikipedia entry for the bath toys. But STILL couldn’t find them in the grid (given that two letters needed changing we were looking for straight lines). And then I realised that the Saturday IQ under my elbow had the solution, which sapped my will to continue. Very clever idea, and lovely final grid, but I thought that a few of the clues were a bit OTT. No apology needed- we need to have the odd defeat!
One of 2019’s tougher Inquisitors for me. Lots to enjoy though and always a bonus to be introduced to an unfamiliar topic. 4D I couldn’t parse either. Off yo kick myself. Many thanks to Wan and Duncan.