Inquisitor 1618: The Missing Piece of the Jigsaw by Nimrod

17 comments on “Inquisitor 1618: The Missing Piece of the Jigsaw by Nimrod”

1. Well, we did have an extra hour to work with, it being the cutover to GMT, but as expected it needed a lot more than that to complete. 😉

   Slow to start, slow in the middle, and slow to complete, though getting the CONCERTO was a big help when trying to complete the grid as what else would we be looking for but ELGAR?

   Very satisfying to complete, especially when the puzzle and associated preamble looked so scary at first glance.

2. I thought the whole concept and design of this ‘double alphabetical’ puzzle was remarkable. The idea of using either end of the answer word as the (unchecked) key letter in the second set of clues was original and brilliant. It had the effect (at least for me) of making what I would call the last phase of a jigsaw crossword a substantial one and not just a routine task of bunging in jigsaw pieces in the only places they can go.

   I was doubtful at the start whether I would get very far with a jigsaw crossword in which the clues have no word lengths – remembering one other puzzle from about 18 months ago that had the same deficiency. I decided, as an experiment and to prove a point to myself (and not for the more logical reason you had, Duncan), to try and solve the entire set of conventional clues before attempting the jigsaw or the second set of clues.

   It was an interesting challenge, involving a lot of looking up, but it was 100% successful, giving me 25 words to go into the jigsaw. It was then that I had a bit of luck with the theme, spotting a link between my missing word beginning with E (five letters) and the word CELL down below. I guessed Elgar Cello …, noticing that the O of Cello matched the O at the end of the word that naturally follows: Concerto.

   After solving a handful of clues from the second set, and now given CONCERTO, I saw an opportunity to start the jigsaw with the word JACANA, and I pieced about half of the jigsaw together. Solving the bulk of the second set of clues and completing the jigsaw presented a further challenge, but a highly rewarding one.

   (I guessed both USE UP and BAGGAGE, leaving them only ‘half parsed’ as you did, Duncan.)

   Once again, I found these ‘Inquisitor clues’ excellent. The previous week’s Radler was still fresh in my mind, and it was good to be at the receiving end of another setter’s verbal dexterity and imagination.

   Thanks to both Nimrod and Duncan.

3. This was hard but excellent. I’m very impressed with anyone who can solve these clues cold – I needed a lot of experimenting with fitting bits in the grid and seeing what might come up.

   BAGE in BAGGAGE comes from BAGEL being a ‘success in court’ – a set won 6-0 in tennis. I don’t think it’s in Chambers. No idea on USE UP.

4. I thoroughly enjoyed this one: a demanding struggle which took me a while to complete but the big plus was that all the work was in the puzzle itself and I did not have to spend hours trawling the internet to find obscure details. As with Duncan & Alan, I had more luck with the conventional jigsaw at first. I decided to make 2 copies of the grid, one for each jigsaw, and blocked out the un-needed cells in both. This made the conventional grid easier to fill and, of course, I transferred the relevant letters to the terminal grid. There were some deviously clever clues which, when eventually solved, parsed perfectly, although I too could not parse BAGGAGE. My 2006 Chambers does not contain QUADDING or GRISSINO, although my good lady, who knows about these things, was able to confirm the latter. The trick with the final O was most elegant.

   A very satisfying puzzle to complete. Many thanks to Nimrod and Duncan.

5. I enjoyed this – with CREDOS/JACANA being my way in, plus ICE CUBE and associated entries in the bottom right quadrant…challenging and impressive with the double alphabet device… the ‘whirling demon’ KAPIL DEV raised a smile for this cricket fan of a certain age!

   However, I felt the preamble was slightly misleading – there is no ‘missing cell’, as in an empty cell, unless you guess the unclued word as CONCERT, with O missing? I think it should have said ‘The letter in the unclued silver cell…’ or something similar?

   I parsed BAGGAGE as BAGE(L) (success in a tennis court – a 6-0 set is called a bagel) cut short, around GAG.

   Thanks, as always, s setter and blogger.

6. PS I agree with Duncan’s parsing of USE UP

7. Richard3435 @3: BAGEL is in Chambers (13th ed).
   No further suggestions on USE UP, but I too didn’t immediately recognise the significance of ‘complete’.

   Thanks to Duncan & Nimrod.

8. As one would expect from Nimrod, a tough challenge but a really rewarding one. As someone else has said BAGEL is 6-0 in tennis.

   For a while I was looking for EDGAR (ALLAN POE?), (RICE BURROUGHS) connections but light eventually dawned

   I though the clues themselves were absolutely brilliant – often with barred puzzles the clues almost seem like an afterthought to the whole concept but these were by and large top quality throughout. I have absolutely no idea how one begins to design a gridfill such as this but I take my hat off to Nimrod for doing so…

9. I started filling in the grid with MYSELF and LOIRE. Being a Nimrod puzzle, I thought I would struggle, but managed to finish it on the Sunday evening after I’d got home from holiday and had access to a printer! Amazing gridfill.

10. The perfect puzzle for the start of a relaxing week, with plenty of time to amble through it (amble in the sense of moving slowly, certainly not easily). My way in was the three-letter words, which I thought Nimrod had made deliberately easy (easier, rather). I only had a handful of clues solved after the first pass, but recklessly started filling in with a pen anyway and fortunately only made one wrong guess. This gave plenty of help with working out the missing clues, which I much prefer to cold solving. It took me a long time to work out the bagel reference and I think I eventually satisfied myself about USE UP, parsed as suggested by Duncan, in a sort of &lit-ish way. I wasn’t too happy about it, nor with the ‘uncovered’ in the clue for VERSOS meaning just missing the first letter, though it does make sense as it’s a down clue, which also helped to confirm where it went. Overall though a puzzle very much up to Nimrod’s high standards, with so many inventive and disorientating clues.

    My biggest PDM came when I realised that Elgar hadn’t actually written 25 concertos and mysteriously missed out the ‘O concerto’, but that that ‘CELL’ was there for a reason! Sometimes I wonder how I ever get anything filled in at all.

11. A tour de force in grid construction and brilliantly innovative in its use of the terminal alphabetical clues. In my book up there, as such, as one of the potentials for end of the year honours. I had the same three seven letter end letter terminal clues as Duncan (ICE CUBE, WATERER AND SEABOAT) which coupled with WIDED gave me my entry into the grid fill. Pretty slow process cold solving but completion then moved ahead fairly quickly. I felt a great sense of satisfaction in completing the grid. Just what the IQ is about.

12. Thanks to duncanshiell  and Nimrod

    The best I could come up with for USE UP, was as a sort of in joke  –  US = SETTERS and UP = PRAISE/BIG-UP or perhaps “encourage” or some such, which  grateful contributors here often do : “AS DO YOU”.

    I thought for VERSO that “left” must be part of the def, because otherwise what is “until after” doing?

    Perhaps “until after” is “over”, e.g. “I won’t go to work OVER/UNTIL AFTER Christmas”, or something like that, which is uncovered to give VER.

13. Dansar @12
    Thanks for that insight regarding USE UP. I tried to deconstruct that clue in two entirely different ways – but not that one. Interpreting ‘us’ as ‘setters’ opens up a similar possibility to yours, but using ‘do up’ to mean ‘fatigue utterly’ (Chambers) or simply ‘wear out’ (my phrase). In that case the ‘in-joke’ is based on the setters saying to solvers ‘you do us up’, meaning ‘you wear us out’. (You then just put the E in between US and UP.) I only offer this because I did not quite see ‘do up’ meaning ‘big up’ or ‘us up’ being a way of saying ‘up us’.

14. I enjoyed this very much.  Alphabetical jigsaws are one of my favourites anyway, so this was a double pleasure.  I (eventually) managed to understand all the clues except USE UP and BAGGAGE.  I fumbled an explanation something similar to Duncan for USE UP, but I was far from happy with my effort.  I had no idea at all about baggage, but the answer had to be right.

    Thanks to Duncan and Nimrod.

15. Dansar @12: I agree that “left” is part of the definition for VERSOS, Chambers giving “until after” as one meaning of over.

16. The alphabetical jigsaw to end all alphabetical jigsaws!

    A very enjoyable, tough solve plus a lot of head scratching. We also had a few problems with USE UP and also BAGGAGE which we eventually sorted out once we looked up BAGEL.

    A good sense of achievement once we had finished so thanks to Nimrod. Thanks also to Duncan for all your efforts in compiling the blog.

17. Could the USE UP clue be explained by slicing US and U (as do you) with E and P (the ends of pineapple)?

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