This will be only the fourth of Kruger‘s 41 Inquisitor puzzles that I’ve blogged – kenmac usually snaffles them.
Preamble: Two colleagues on a day trip to the sea have left another one behind in Columbia. After changing one checked letter in the completed grid (creating a non-word) their two names must be highlighted together with their destination and means of transport (31 cells). The name of the colleague left behind and the reason why they got together in the first place must also be highlighted (a further 15 cells). The definitions in several clues contain a single letter misprint; correct letters, in clue order, identify who arranged the trip, to be written below the grid.
The first thing I noticed was the spelling of “Columbia” – not the country then. And the grid was not at all symmetrical – often indicative of a healthy dose of thematic material to be discovered.
It took me longer than it really should have to realise what the theme was, especially given all the coverage in the media.
Saturday morning, and I’m again on a 1-hr. train journey to London for yet another march; many of the early across clues are yielding without much effort so I turn my attention to the downs, and they don’t seem that much harder. When I disembark, the top half of the grid is fairly well populated, and I’ve looked at maybe only 60-70% of the clues.
Saturday afternoon, and I’m back on the train, heading out of London with the puzzle to occupy me once again. The clues for the entries in the bottom half of the grid were a little more demanding, and A E Housman was trying to elbow his way in via the misprints – but Shropshire does not chime well with the preamble and I have an N from 2a as the first misprint anyway.
Finally I see that I had overlooked the misprinted T from 23d and so it wasn’t Housman but Houston, and we were dealing with the 50th anniversary of the first landing of humans on the moon. After that, things moved swiftly along. ARMSTRONG and ALDRIN could be picked out quite easily, as could EAGLE and TRANQUILITY (once we change an A to I).
Up top there is the third crew member, COLLINS, and the spacecraft that took the three astronauts there, APOLLO XI. Just a few loose ends to tidy up when I get home (“gharana” at 37a for example), and then I’m done.
Thanks Kruger – easier than I expected from the preamble and asymmetric grid. Still, I had lots of other things to do at the weekend.
I’ll be bound for Georgia (“GE” not “GA”) shortly after this comes out, so probably no responses before mid-August.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue [✗] ✓ | ✓ | Answer | Wordplay |
| 2 | Cou[r]nting old students in Cambridge (4) | N | POLL | double definition |
| 5 | What could make leather without using hard compounds (6) | OXIDES | OX HIDES (what could make leather) ¬ H(ard) | |
| 11 | It gives polarity to light metal, we hear (5) | NICOL | homophone: NICKEL (metal) | |
| 12 | More than one animal’s organ found in ravines (8) | LINSANGS | SANG (organ) in LINS (ravines) | |
| 14 | Enthusiastically welcome accountant against junk mail (7) | ACCLAIM | ACC(ountant) [MAIL]* | |
| 15 | School engaged in very large inscriptions for old people (5) | OGAMS | GAM (school) in OS (outsize, very large) | |
| 17 | UK and Spain are circulating great discovery (6) | EUREKA | [UK E (Spain) ARE]* | |
| 18 | Order to agent holding most of cash for fragrant liquid (8) | LIMONENE | LINE (order to agent) around MONE(y) (cash) | |
| 19 | Noisy Scottish soldiers into whisky mainly (4) | RORY | OR (other ranks, soldiers) in RY(e) (whisky) | |
| 21 | Dr[u]ab Elizabeth of Spain (6) | A | ISABEL | double definition |
| 24 | Officer in charge starts to lambast unfit men in front of new body of troops (6) | COLUMN | CO (officer in charge) L(ambast) U(nfit) M(en) N(ew) | |
| 25 | Call from Parisian pu[t]ss contrary plan to man in East London (5) | S | MIAOU | AIM< (plan) OU (man, S Afr) |
| 27 | Process to note revolutionary version of the Bible (5) | ITALA | ALA (process) TI (note) all< | |
| 29 | Stones fans allowed inside (7) | NUTLETS | NUTS (fans) around LET (allowed) | |
| 30 | Embrace preposterously upheld duchy’s claims (6) | CUDDLE | (uph)ELD DUC(hy) all< | |
| 33 | Composer from Burundi facing outlandish barb (6) | RUBBRA | RU (Burundi) [BARB]* | |
| 37 | Music school in African country admitting Arab (7) | GHARANA | GHANA (African country) around AR(ab) | |
| 39 | Israeli’s v[o]alley has no rounds initially going astray (6) | A | SHARON | [HAS NO R(ounds)]* |
| 41 | Queen and Empress taken in by despicable [j]hunky (6) | H | VIRILE | RI (Queen and Empress) in VILE (despicable) |
| 42 | Refuse undated design (4) | BRAN | BRAND (design) ¬ D(ate) | |
| 43 | Shark to live on nameless fish (6) | BEAGLE | BE (live) ANGLE (fish) ¬ N(ame) | |
| 44 | Absolute failure to play G[e]one (3) | O | AGO | A(bsolute) GO (failure to play) |
| 45 | Left behind essentially bum art on ground (6) | OUTRAN | [(b)U(m) ART ON]* | |
| 46 | Stat[e]us, overlooking evasion at first, right to imprison Capone (7) | U | QUALITY | EQUITY (right) ¬ E(vasion) around AL (Capone) |
| Down | No. | Clue [✗] ✓ | ✓ | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 | Emotionally dependent condition – I can’t claim when money’s spent (9) | ANACLITIC | [I CAN’T CLAIM]* ¬ M(oney) {ref: “spent” seems to be doing double duty here} |
|
| 2 | Language once reportedly favoured by island hospital (7) | PICTISH | homophone: PICKED (favoured) + I(sland) H(ospital) | |
| 3 | IT professional may use this alloy endlessly (5) | OCCAM | OCCAM(y) (alloy) | |
| 4 | Found £3 and ring in lounge (4) | LOLL | [LLL (£3) O (ring)]* | |
| 5 | Ordinary disease arises in tree (5) | OLIVE | O(rdinary) EVIL< (disease) | |
| 6 | In the style of a [b]setter team, intend restricting space (8) | S | XIMENEAN | XI (eleven, team) MEAN (intend) around EN (space) |
| 7 | Eventually, quirky cousin rued eccentricity (11, 3 words) | IN DUE COURSE | [COUSIN RUED E(ccentricity)]* | |
| 8 | In good time to embrace Georgia enthusiastically (7) | EAGERLY | EARLY (in good time) around GE(orgia) | |
| 9 | Phonetic symbol seen originally in ancient Greek manuscript, amazingly (4) | AGMA | A(ncient) G(reek) M(anuscript) A(mazingly) | |
| 10 | Excuses for absence from court in El Salvador succeeded, yes? No – wrong! (8) | ESSOYNES | ES (El Salvador) S(ucceeded) [YES NO]* | |
| 13 | Deal with what rots could signify? (7, 2 words) | SORT OUT | [ROTS]* | |
| 16 | Injection accepted after something harmful contracted (5) | ENEMA | A(ccepted) after ENEM(y) (something harmful) | |
| 20 | River bird hasn’t left (4) | OUSE | OUSEL (bird) ¬ L(eft) | |
| 22 | Singer Adam Ant stupidly forgets number without a verse (8) | AMADAVAT | [ADAM ANT]* ¬ N(umber) around A V(erse) | |
| 23 | With little [b]tread, it’s offensive eating quarter of loaf (4) | T | BALD | BAD (offensive) around L(oaf) |
| 26 | Industrialist finally usurps American in beachwear p[a]otent (6) | O | STRONG | SARONG (beachwear) with (industrialis)T for A(merican) |
| 28 | Important person mostly wears suit in New York – that’s the spirit! (5) | GENIE | NI(b) (important person) in GEE (suit, US sl) | |
| 31 | Upper-class university checking Henry’s sport? Liberty! (5) | UHURU | U(pper-class) U(niversity) around H(enry) RU (rugby union, sport) | |
| 32 | Divorce covered up by sentimental Aquarian (5) | TALAQ | (sentimen)TAL AQ(uarian) | |
| 34 | Girlfriend beginning to leave scene of confusion (5) | BABEL | BABE (girlfriend) L(eave) | |
| 35 | Support excellent Cape Town BBQ (5) | BRAAI | BRA (support) A1 (excellent) | |
| 36 | PA’s given no time to [s]nettle (5) | N | ANNOY | TANNOY (PA) ¬ T(ime) |
| 37 | Roman hunchback removes head from blooming burdock (4) | GOBO | GOBBO (hunchback, Ital) | |
| 38 | Rescue service carries brother back in carriage (4) | ARBA | AA (rescue service) around BR(other)< | |
| 40 | Their load regularly makes depressions (4) | HILA | (t)H(e)I(r) L(o)A(d) | |
|
|
||||
Excellent puzzle. Fairly easy as you could guess what you were looking for before even starting! I really like the grid construction. Aldrin and Armstrong standing on Tranquillity with Collins above them attached to Apollo XI. Bravo!
Eagle as well on Tranquillity!
An odd experience: I solved the right hand side of the puzzle in one session, and then, when I returned to it a day or two later, I found it much harder. Perhaps that’s where the obscurer words lurked (Itala, Amadavat, Gharana – which I still can’t see in Chambers).
So thanks to HolyGhost for the help; and Kruger for a sweet construction.
Enjoyed, with thanks as usual to Kruger and HG. The penny dropped sooner that it might have thanks to all the news coverage. I didn’t have much of the left half of the grid when I saw ARMSTRONG and TRANQUILITY, so fitting in ALDRIN was a useful key to the unsolved clues there.
The preamble missed the golden opportunity to say that solvers would need Collins…
The last comment from David Langford above made us laugh.
The preamble and title gave the theme away just from reading but it wasn’t a walkover.
We both remember staying up all night to watch the landing. As others have said, the placement of the thematic entries was excellent but we didn’t spot that until after we had completed all the grid.
Thanks to Kruger and HolyGhost.
I must admit that I had forgotten that the orbiting vessel was Columbia so it took me longer than it should for the penny to drop. The clues were a good mix of difficulties with a few unusual words, gratefully assisted by completing the crossing themed entries. Most enjoyable and with a clever construction. It was nice to see UHURU, presumably a nod to the lovely “lootenant” of the original Star Trek TV series.Thanks to Kruger and HG.
By the way, me & the missus were delighted to see the actual Command Module (so we were told!) at the Science Museum in 1980. It was weird to touch something that had been to the Moon & back.
I enjoyed this but didn’t remember that Columbia was involved in moon landings so wasted some time looking for spacewalks etc from the space shuttle Columbia instead. I didn’t find the clues as easy as others, about middle-of-the-range for an IQ for me. I remember seeing some moon rock as a child, probably at the Science Museum, and being very disappointed that it looked exactly like, well… a piece of rock.
Thanks to HG and Kruger
I really enjoyed this, so many thanks to Kruger. Despite having anticipated a moon-based puzzle for the last few weeks, it still took me until the middle of the week and a half-full grid before the penny dropped. Spotting TRANQUALITY along the bottom was the key. While others found it obvious, I thought that the blurb did a good job of disguising the theme.
Thanks to HG for the blog.
Makes a huge difference when end game is topically predictable, rather than being some obscure pop group of the 80s which even Google is not much help on.
Loved this one … good title and clever preamble. Only worry was the apparent single L in TRANQUILITY, which my elderly Chambers confirmed as an American spelling.
Thanks to Oom Paul and HG.
Also loved Stick Insect’s “There and back” Listener, as I’m sure many of you did too, with its brilliant grid feat of including twelve thematic names IN THE CORRECT ORDER. Phew !
I always thought that we had roused our young son from his cot to watch first steps on moon, but now realise it must have been a subsequent mission as he wasn’t born until October 1960.