Inquisitor 1617: ONCE by Radler

19 comments on “Inquisitor 1617: ONCE by Radler”

1. 

   Jon_S

   #1 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 10:26

   
   

   A slightly alarming solve here, as I failed to parse any of the greyed (they’re not really silver are they, at least in my paper? 🙂 ) entries on solving, and basically filled in the previous capitals from checking letters, and then spotted the LONDON / WINCHESTER swap. It was only then that the penny dropped and I went back, corrected a couple of errors, and parsed the current capitals to check the grid was correct. Coupled with a slow grid solve, this is one I never really felt I had a grip on and was mightily relieved at the close to finish with everything (hopefully) present and correct.

2. 

   copmus

   #2 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 10:55

   
   

   Breakthrough for me was when I parsed BERLIN, saw a 4 letter entry and saw ISTANBUL lurking and I sniffed something. But I  needed to phone a friend. I’m still a new boy at these .

   Nice theme and blog.Thanks.

3. 

   PeeDee

   #3 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 11:17

   
   

   Same experience as Jon_S in that I hadn’t solved any of the silver entries even though the rest of the grid was almost full.  Eventually I did twig what was going on and with the help of Wikipedia everything started to fall into place.

   I found this slow going but enjoyably so.  Not always a good thing to finish quickly!

   Thanks to Duncan and Radler.

4. 

   OPatrick

   #4 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 11:21

   
   

   I have mixed feelings about this. Really enjoyed the theme and plenty of good clues, but a few loose ones left too many uncertainties for me at the end. In particular I wasn’t happy about SASH at 34A and IDOL at 37D – I still feel there’s something missing in the parsing of these two. I think I eventually convinced myself of the parsing of 19D – I was probably delayed by the use of ‘best friend’ for dog, which is not a definition that chimes with me! I’d also failed to find Granada as a previous capital of Nicaragua but had left this hanging, as GRANADA was necessarily correct.

5. 

   Neil Hunter

   #5 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 11:33

   
   

   I would position this at the harder end of the spectrum. Struggled for a long time to see the game, but finally detected Brasilia in the clue to Rio. Even so, it didn’t flow, and I needed a few nudges from this blog to complete. The air slightly went out of my balloon when I decided that Mdina was once capital of Malta. But it didn’t want to go in. That hit the ceiling of my research impulses.

   All the same, a real and fair challenge (Myanmar’s capital notwithstanding) and an impressive final twist. Thanks to Radler and an indispensable blog.

6. 

   kenmac

   #6 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 12:54

   
   

   Apologies if this was implied and I missed it.

   Inquisitor titles are usually mixed case but this one was all upper case, hence ONCE (all in) capitals.

    

7. 

   NNI

   #7 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 14:17

   
   

   RIO, GRANADA, and SCONE gave the game away for me, but I’d made a couple of mistakes in the grid and failed to get a few others due to time restraints (I was on holiday).

8. 

   HolyGhost

   #8 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 14:37

   
   

   I’m inclined to the view of OPatrick @4, but more so. What was the hyphen doing in “strip-light” in the clue for SASH at 34a (Guardian Cryptic style)? I never did understand ARF for 19d until now, but I think the clue for IDOL at 37d is OK if it’s also &lit., reading it as I (=one) DOL(L) (=goddess, almost).

   Despite (or because of) finding RIO on the first pass, and straightaway interpreting the title as ‘former’ in capitals, I found this puzzle a bit of a slog and didn’t enjoy it very much – guessing capitals and reverse engineering the wordplay. Though the situation was somewhat retrieved by the LONDON-> WI-NCHEST-ER switch at the end.

   I remember having similar difficulties with a previous puzzle from Radler (3 years ago) where the answers to several clues had to be replaced by the correspond collective noun, as in CAMEL leading to the entry TRAIN – again it was possible to fill the grid without solving all the clues. (How many of us know that a flock of FINCHes is a CHARM?)

   Thanks for the blog Duncan (although you obviously don’t mean “Wets Germany”) and Radler for the puzzle – I much preferred your Matters in Particular from years back (mid-2013) and the Kafka one.

9. 

   Alan B

   #9 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 16:41

   
   

   I was concerned at first to read that the nine special clues had not only no definitions but also no word-lengths and no possibility of any crossing letters, as I assumed that solving these clues would be key to the endgame. Against that, though, I guessed that the lack of a definition meant that they all had the same definition.

   I couldn’t solve any of the partial clues. I made slow and steady progress with the normal ones but had to leave some of them unsolved.

   My first whiff of the theme came from 14a, where I had all three possible crossers. I thought it could be YANGON, but I foolishly rejected it thinking it was a current capital and not a ‘retrospective’ one! Some time later, however, when RIO appeared in full, there was no doubt about the theme, and that became the first of the partial clues that I managed to solve, giving me Brasilia. I didn’t know BIRGU or GRANADA as old capitals, and the partial clues were not easy, but what I had in the grid was enough for me to find all the thematic names, including the pair of capitals in the diagonal.

   In the end it was a very satisfying puzzle, as it always is when the theme, as it develops, also helps me to finish solving the stickiest clues. I often take space here to praise the clues and must do so again, as I thought many of them were exceptionally good, notable especially for their precision and economy. (But I too wondered why the clue for SASH had “so you’re told?” at the end – also the redundant “it’s” in the clue for LEPRA.) I parsed IDOL the way that HolyGhost did and thought it was a very good clue.

   Many thanks to both Radler and Duncan.

10. 

    duncanshiell

    #10 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 16:43

    
    

    ‘Wets’ now corrected to ‘West’

11. 

    OPatrick

    #11 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 19:08

    
    

    kenmac @6, shouldn’t the title have been “ONCE once” then?

    I’d rejected the dol(l) = goddess connection at 37D – the terms seem almost opposites.

12. 

    Kippax

    #12 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 20:11

    
    

    I was struggling until I spotted ISTANBUL appearing. Unfortunately, I then went down a blind alley by assuming it would be about cities that had changed their name. YANGON got me on the right track.

    This puzzle grew on me as I got closer to the finish and once the final highlighting appeared I was very impressed indeed. Thanks Radler!

13. 

    HolyGhost

    #13 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 21:45

    
    

    OPatrick @11: DOLL = attractive young woman, GOD[DESS] = a [wo]man of outstandingly fine physique; that looks pretty close to me (and “virtually” = almost, i.e. cut the last letter.)

14. 

    OPatrick

    #14 - Tue 29th Oct 19, 22:41

    
    

    HG, I was being slightly flippant about these being opposite terms, but if you think about the implications of the two terms it would be hard to think of two words with more contrasting meanings.

15. 

    cruciverbophile

    #15 - Wed 30th Oct 19, 07:59

    
    

    I had no problem at all with DOLL/GODDESS for the reason Holy Ghost gives at 13, but I was another who couldn’t really see the significance of  “so you’re told” in the clue for SASH. I assumed that it was probably to dismiss the hyphen in the cryptic reading of the clue, but then Chambers gives STRIP LIGHT as two words anyway so the hyphen wasn’t necessary in the first place. Not this spoilt the puzzle for me; I always enjoy Radler’s offerings and this was no exception. I did have to rely on a Wiki list of present/former capitals to reverse-engineer some of the special clues.

    As so often the subtlety of the title escaped me. I realised that once = former but missed the significance of it being in capital letters. Duh.

16. 

    Dansar

    #16 - Wed 30th Oct 19, 10:10

    
    

    Thanks to duncanshiell and Radler

    “Fixture” is a fairly loose synonym for “frame” – “fixing” would probably be better, though still stretchy.

    I don’t know where Radler hails from but in some parts of the UK “fixed ‘ere” ( fixed here ), would sound very much like “fixture”.

    Just a thought.

17. 

    PeeDee

    #17 - Wed 30th Oct 19, 21:17

    
    

    For “fixture” Chambers has “a movable thing that has become fastened to a house”.  I know this is not what Chambers intended, but I think this is a lovely definition for the sash, the movable part of a window (light).

18. 

    Phil R

    #18 - Thu 31st Oct 19, 08:09

    
    

    Great blog thank you Duncan. It cleared up a lot of unanswered parsing for me. I thought this was above average difficulty, some of those old capitals weren’t in my memory bank, so trying to decipher without word lengths was tricky. Castletown and Río were my routes into the theme, and thereafter most were reverse engineered via the Internet.

    Entertaining and educational, everything an Inquisitor should be. Thanks Radler.

19. 

    Brock

    #19 - Thu 31st Oct 19, 18:07

    
    

    Agreed with OPatrick and HolyGhost re: SASH. It made it a curate’s egg for me, I’m afraid. Interesting what Cruciverophonile points out re “strip light” in Chambers. Without hyphenation and losing the inexplicable last part of the clue would have transformed this to become one of my favourites! Initially also note sure re: IDOL and LEPRA but came round to them. One other point on the clues: I read 5 as “Strange ((yet mostly) true)” deleting t from yet not true. I’d have expected “mostly true” to indicate “tru” not “rue”.

    Interesting theme, dense thematically filled grid. Some interesting clues, shame about SASH.

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