Inquisitor 1666: It’s an Ill Wind by Harpy

by

The number 1666 for this puzzle was always going to be the most important clue to the subject matter, so let’s dispose of it straight away. It had to be the Great Fire of London, starting at the bakery in Pudding Lane. There was a long way to go before getting there though! First a lot of tricky clues, with 13 letters to be moved in the down clues, and a meaning to be deduced then a four element puzzle and three different sets of highlighting to be done. The rubric read:

The final grid is a dated map. Answers to some across clues must be modified before entry, showing progress across the thematic part of the map (a block of 44 cells with no gaps). An adjacent feature (28 cells) contains only the letters of its name (6). In 13 down clues, a letter must be moved left, creating new word(s), before solving. The resulting name introduces hints to start and end map locations, shown by the only instances of their shared initial letter. A line of 7 empty cells in the completed grid must be filled appropriately, giving six new intersecting words. Solvers must outline the area, highlight the two letters, and shade the feature. The (asymmetric) bar pattern should not be added. Numbers after clues are grid entry lengths. One answer is an abbreviation.

I started with the across clues which were normal clues. I quickly found, when I solved a few down clues, that they did not always fit with their across counterparts, though the down entries contained letters contained in the across answers. So the across answers which had to be modified before entry comprised a set of anagrams.

After solving a reasonable number of clues, I spotted that grid rows 7 and 8 (28 letters in all) consisted entirely of the letters STHEMA, so the river THAMES was the adjacent feature (28 cells) contains only the letters of its name (6). The fire started north of the river, so the mapped area started north of row 7. and took up 44 cells. As I waded through the clues, a pattern began to emerge, so at 18, 21 and 24 across, the first letter was in the correct place, but the subsequent letters were reversed –  e.g. GYRON became GNORY. I deduced that the boundary of the map must go across between rows 6 and 7, and up between columns 1 and 2. In row 3, the first 2 letters of 14 across were in place, but the rest were reversed, so NINGPO became NIOPGN, hence the row 3 boundary was between columns 2 and 3. At this point I had failed to complete row 2, so could progress no further.

At the other side of the grid, the reverse appeared to be true – i.e. the last letter(s) of 20, 23 and 26 across had their final letter(s) in place and their starting sets of letters reversed, so DROOK became OORDK, KROON became ORKON, ROLLO became LORLO and IN PIG became IPNIG. So we had a step-wise boundary, with 12 letters on row 6, 11 on row 5, 10 on row 4 and 8 on row 3. This totalled 41 in all, so there must be 3 on row 2. The resulting shape is not unlike a map of the City of London (see below). Eventually, after much cogitation, I solved 12A, the abbreviation UNDRO and understood the meaning of the word kin in the clue for 5D (Japanese weight), and sorted out that “Our king’s house” was TUDOR, despite the fact that the king at the time of the fire was Charles II, a STUART – so I don’t know why the word our appears in the clue. The three letters on row 2 had to be formed when UNDRO became URDNO. The only two other answers within the mapped area were NIXY and NINON, both reversed.

In writing this blog, I might give the impression that this solve all came logically, one step at a time. Far from it! An anagram here a moving letter there but it all came together in the end.

On to the moving letters. After I had found them all, I realised that all of them were in the first thirteen down clues, and to cut a long story short, I found that the 13 letters spelled GEORGIE PORGIE. This well known (particularly to people named George, like me) rhyme goes

Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie . . .

Well the fire started at Pudding Lane – one hint – and ended at Pye Corner – this latter hint was less easy to find. A Google search for “great fire of london pie” leads you directly to:

Monument-to-the-great-fire-of-london The Golden Boy of Pye Corner is a small late-17th-century monument located on the corner of Giltspur Street and Cock Lane in Smithfield, central London. It marks the spot where the 1666 Great Fire of London was stopped, whereas the Monument hints at the place where it started. 

Within the grid there are only two Ps, both within the map, and sited in approximately the correct place for these two locations. The implication of the direction of the modifications, and the rubric’s showing progress across the thematic part of the map now becomes clear. All the letters within the boundary read from right to left, and the fire “spread rapidly, helped by a strong wind from the east,” – hence the puzzle’s title.

Only the 7 blank cells to fill now. I’d found them on the next to the bottom row, but spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find extra letters that would make six new intersecting words. My efforts were not helped by the fact that I had AN-Y instead of AR-Y at 33 down, but I eventually twigged that this was a dated map, according to the rubric. I could see no way of fitting in 2-6 September 1666 into the 7 available spaces but after I had sorted out ARY, ARMY seemed to be a good fit for 33D and M is the first letter of most dates on old monumental brasses and tombs, which always have them in Roman numerals. So 1666 is MDCLXVI (7 letters) and gives us ARMY, MARDY, TOCO, WINTERLY, RONDEAUX and MERIL – six new words as required.

Well Harpy, what a debut! We haven’t seen you as a setter before but if this is anything to go by, we’ll look forward to more. I grant it an Ofsted “OUTSTANDING”.

 

 

Across
 No.  Clue (definition)  Answer  Grid Entry Wordplay
1 Unplanned growth in love, bubble almost burst in Anchorage (14, 2 words) RIBBON BUILDING [IN O BUBBL(e)]* in RIDING (anchorage)
12 Working round former relief body (5) UNDRO URDNO United Nations Disaster Relief Organisation – the abbreviation: [ROUND]*
14 It was a battle in China cleaning polluted harbours (6 NINGPO NIOPGN Hidden in (harbours)  cleaNING POlluted
15 Doctor’s orders initially fine for Glaswegian soak (5) DROOK OORDK DR (doctor) + O(rders) + OK (fine)
17 Go from house where rubbish is put (3) BIN BINGO (House!) minus GO
18 Heartless gryphons, docked and arranged with this charge? (5) GYRON GNORY GRY(ph)ONS heartless, then docked [GRYON(s)]*
20 Liberian sailor joins navy, sent 100 times (5) KROON ORKON sent is 1/100 of a kroon in Estonia: KROO (Liberian sailor) + N(avy)
21 This brave one trailing gang would be a bundle of nerves (4) LION LNOI GANGLION (bundle of nerves) minus GANG
22 Large number privy to flimsy material (5) NINON NONIN N (large number) + IN ON (privy to)
23 The first duke of Normandy to turn old (5) ROLLO LORLO ROLL (to turn) + O(ld)
24 Hybrid Golf’s left in unit, oddly (4) UGLI UILG G(olf) + L(eft) in UI (odd letters of UnIt)
25 Water spirit with spite’s nothing unknown (4) NIXY YXIN NIX (nothing) + Y (unknown)
26 What a pregnant sow is half grasping – independence gone (5, 2 words) IN PIG IPNIG [(gras)PING I(ndependence]*
27 What Inquisitor features an article by Harpy? (5 THEME THE (article) + ME (Harpy, the setter)
29 Nearly stopped flow of returning SW tourists (6 EMMETS STEMME(d) (nearly stopped flow) reversed
32 Letter from Matthew lacking envelope going astray (5) THETA [(M)ATTHE(w)]*
34 Celebrate, as everyone shelters free from anxiety (6, 2 words) AT EASE Hidden in celebrATE AS Everyone
36 Novel queen of hearts dividing bridge opponents (3) SHE Novel by H Rider Haggard: S and E (bridge opponents) round H(earts)
37 Edible piece of shark put before one over in France (4) FINI FIN (edible piece of shark) + I (one)
39 Right to dismantle system of tenure at St Andrews (6) RUNRIG R(ight) + UNRIG (dismantle)
40 Stimulate delight that’s good for year (3) JOG JOY (delight) with G(ood) replacing Y(ear)
41 Adherent’s not cold like Heather (5) LINGY CLINGY (adherent) minus C(old)
42 A fool you cut short twice (4) YO-YO YO(u) twice
43 With the wind up, boy’s heart becomes subdued (5) BLOWY BoY with o (heart) replaced by LOW (subdued)

Down
 No.  Clue (definition) Moved letter from to  Answer  Wordplay  X
1 Make a ding in a ground (4) RING Double definition G
2 Skye’s appearance has brother getting blotto at least (4) BROO BRO(ther) + (blott)O E
3 Loose party of soldiers with Germany’s central unit coasting away (4) ORGY OR (soldiers) + G(erman)Y O
4 Victorian breard O’Brien soused with whiskey (7) BROWNIE [OBRIEN W]* R
5 Our king’s house once stripped – it might be bought by the king (3) UDO A kin is a Japanese weight and an UDO is a Japanese plant: (T)UDO(r) G
6 Retiried sweet statistical measure (3) LOD DOL (sweet) reversed I
7 With little one climbing the Cape’s dune to stone curlew (6) DIKKOP KID (little one) reversed + KOP (a South African dun or hill) E
8 pLuck getting pup in hotel – it’s natural (6) INBORN ROB (pluck) reversed (getting up) in INN (hotel) P
9 Pointer perhaps going at boundaries? Too open in that cover (6, 2 words) GUN DOG G(oin)G round UNDO (open) O
10 Forssa’s tongue is perfect to the rear (7) FINNISH Forssa is a Finnish town: sounds like FINISH (perfect) R
11 Switch sides in making ceiling glow, getting grid of tilted parts (10) UPRIGHTING UPLIGHTING (making ceiling glow) with R(ight) for L(eft) G
12 Extract from crate’s unitied atop new wood (5) UNBOX U(nited) + N(ew) + BOX (wood) I
13 Gaele’s close by lough – go with cycles in this toun (10 LINLITHGOW (Gae)L + IN (by) + L(ough) + [GO WITH]* E
16 Beginning to rave over Auden’s fantastic poem (7) RONDEAU R(ave) + O(ver) + [AUDEN]*
19 Maybe Pratchett’s disheartened after victory of the season (7) WINTERY WIN (victory) + TE(r)RY (Pratchett disheartened)
21 In bits, try to leave trustfully – the rest might be longing for it (7) LUSTFUL Remove TRY from [(tr)USTFULL(y)]*
27 Take care of  Troy’s destruction (4) TEND T(roy weight) + END (destruction)
28 Shelley possibly to wed right away (4) MARY MARRY (wed) minus R(ight)
30 Small falcon dropping in gets Rabbie’s blackbird (4) MERL MERL(in) (small falcon)
31 Jumpy after whiff of skunk – not like grass but similar (5) SEDGY S(kunk) + EDGY (jumpy)
33 One unspecified rural school for kids not overly prissy (3) ARY (PRIM)ARY (school for kids) minus PRIM (prissy)
35 In addition a number is taken incorrectly (3) TOO Sounds like TWO (number)
36 Korean poetry raised suggestive images? Save me! (4) SIJO EMOJIS (suggestive images) reversed minus ME
38 New Zealander has no leader for his tribe (3) IWI (K)IWI (leaderless New Zealander)

 

 

 

 

40 comments on “Inquisitor 1666: It’s an Ill Wind by Harpy”

  1. A DNF here – I had most of the grid filled, but never did work out how to adjust the entries that needed doing so, where all the blank cells might lie, or for that matter where the two areas in question might be. Looking at the blog, I’m not convinced I ever would have. 🙂 Congrats though to Harpy on the debut, and also to anybody who finished this.

  2. Well, I seem to have got the same solution as you – here it is. (Incidentally you’ve omitted the D at the end of row 9 in the completed grid.)

    I’m not sure what to make of it all, though.  There was no indication in the preamble that five Down clues had to be entered with an extra blank space before the final letter, and I can’t see how anyone was supposed to guess.  I don’t think I’d have been able to solve it without getting several hints, and the completed grid looks like complete gibberish to me.  Is there some extra hidden message I’ve missed?

    Oh well, at least I’ve learned about Pye Corner!

  3. Just spotted another error in the blog: the grid entry for 20ac is ORKON, not NOORK.  Well done for getting through all that!

  4. One observation about the puzzle: apart from the M in the date, none of the letters of THAMES occur outside rows 7 and 8.  This can’t be a coincidence.

    Could someone please explain BROO = “Skye’s appearance” in 2dn?  I had to take that one on trust.

  5. I’m with Guy Barry in his comment about the blank spaces: I only realised the significance of the repeated letters on the bottom row by visiting a certain website forum.  Even with that help I couldn’t determine the boundaries of the map, although (again with help) I worked out the Latin date to insert.  I originally thought the two Ks in the same column were significant, but eventually realised it had to be the Ps.  Matters were not helped by the fact that the Wikipedia entry for the Georgie Porgie nursery rhyme makes no mention whatever of any connection to the Great Fire.

    I can explain BROO: it is a Scottish, form of BROW, which can mean appearance.

    Congratulations to anyone who finished the puzzle in full.  Is it just me, or are Inquisitors getting harder as the year goes on?

  7. I thought this was an excellent puzzle – one of the best. I appreciated the trouble taken in the design to give enough in the clues and the preamble to enable the different thematic items to be found or worked out, but without giving anything away.

    I completed the bottom half of the grid first and then saw the two complete rows consisting only of the letters of THAMES.

    The fact that I had solved all Down clues after 13d without encountering any of the 13 special clues told me that all of the first 13 must be special clues. That helped with solving them, and I got GEORGIE PORGIE when I had 10 of those letters.

    The name Pudding told me straight away that this must be the City of London at the time of the Great Fire. It was good to learn of the Pye connection (and the Golden Boy) as well as be reminded of the Monument in Pudding Lane. As Hihoba noted, the Ps were well placed on the ‘map’.

    Delineating the map area went very much the way Hihoba found – seeing the effect of a ‘strong East wind’ on the relevant Across entries. The result compared brilliantly well with the map (above) that I also found on Wikipedia.

    Knowing what ‘caption’ to write in the seven empty cells was a bit of a challenge. I thought first along the lines of a place name (a borough?) South of the Thames at the time. Eventually the cluster of what were evidently going to be consonants made me think of a date in Roman numerals, and MDCLXVI needed no thought.

    We had 1660 recently, with a Caroline theme, and with 1666 we now have the monstrous firefighting effort in 1666, nominally led by Charles II from his Westminster residence.

    Many thanks to Harpy and Hihoba.

  8. I enjoyed this one a lot…all the pieces fitting eventually. The key PDM—spotting 1666—was prompted when I finally read the editor’s adjacent comments on the significance of 1660. No problem with having to move some letters to generate 7 empty cells…it seemed the only logical thing to do once the grid was filled. And just as I put my paper down trying to think how to fill these cells I recalled that the rubric told us it was a DATED map..ho! ho!

  9. @5: “the Wikipedia entry for the Georgie Porgie nursery rhyme makes no mention whatever of any connection to the Great Fire”.

    I don’t think there is one – the rhyme dates from the mid-nineteenth century and the wording appears to be a coincidence, although this site mentions the Great Fire as one of a number of rather fanciful explanations advanced for the rhyme’s origin.

    When I got the hint that the letters spelled out a children’s rhyme, I assumed it would be “London’s Burning”!

  11. I spent far too long on the endgame to get much enjoyment from this, which is a shame was this was a clever puzzle and the problems were mostly of my own making. Not noticing that all but the last letter of IN PIG were reversed (don’t know why) meant I was unable to determine exactly which 44 cells to outline. It also didn’t occur to me that 1666 should be converted to Roman numerals to fill the seven blanks. I had to rely on hints from a forum to “finish” the puzzle. Congratulations to Harpy on a fine puzzle – and sorry that I wasn’t up to the challenge!

  13. Although I didn’t finish this I think it was an excellent puzzle, just what an Inquisitor should be, with a number of layers. The Georgie Porgie reference, unrelated to the Great Fire, was a clever indicator, and the map with the Thames below was brilliant. I had no problem finding the seven empty squares, which became obvious as the surrounding clues were solved, but stupidly I didn’t think to look for a date rather than a word or a name. Not spotting that rondeau could be extended to rondeaux didn’t help. Warmest congratulations to Harpy and many thanks to Hihoba.

  14. Thanks!  I do appreciate the immense amount of effort you must have put into writing the blog (writing up my own effort took long enough, without any graphics, maps or photos).

  15. I’m with Stumper@13: I didn’t get across the finishing line (stupidly didn’t see how to extend the two gaps into seven) but enjoyed it a lot; the challenge sucked me in. Got the Thames, Pudding, the number of the crossword, the City of London – though I do think the north-east (Holborn?), with its combination of tough clueing / obscure words and modified entries, was a big ask. Am I alone in spending too long trying to parse Rabbit Breeding for 1A?

    Many thanks to Harpy & Hihoba.

  16. Thanks all round! Most impressed despite taking an unusually long time to finish. I too didn’t get ARY until forced there by the needed M in the date. Another delay came from failure to realize that the parts of across answers in the fire zone weren’t just jumbled but reversed — which makes all the difference between 43 and the required 44 cells when it comes to IN PIG, whose two I’s swap places.

    I once had a great-aunt living at Pye Corner, but in Newport Mon. rather than Smithfield.

    No one seems to have mentioned Nimrod’s huge hint about the IQ number in his apparently unrelated Give Me a Clue editorial section.

  17. DNF for me, despite, after a helpful hint, spotting the Thames and suspecting that Pudding Lane was involved. I knew where to put the seven letters but failed miserably in identifying what they were.

  18. Does anyone else share my vague conviction that the solution to this is some sort of puzzle in itself?

    So many strange things about the completed grid.  I’ve already mentioned the absence of T, H, A, M, E and S outside the two rows representing the Thames (apart from the M in the date).  Then there’s the recurrence of certain letters in each of the rows (N in row 3, R in row 9, Y in row 11).  Then there’s the odd appearance of words where you wouldn’t expect them: WORK in row 4, ONION backwards in row 5.  And then there are the hints of words relevant to the theme, particularly DOWNWIND, which you can trace out (roughly) down the middle of the affected area.

    Or maybe I’m reading too much into it…

     

  20. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Great_Fire_of_LondonI used to work very near The Monument and I must have climbed it at least six times. As soon as I saw the puzzle number, I guessed at The Great Fire. And the Ill Wind kinda helped.

    I was half expecting the seven empty cells to represent The Monument but since monument is eight letters (not seven) I had my doubts.

    I began to notice that some of the letters on the bottom row were the same as the row above so, assuming that the penultimate letters of some words were to be left blank, I soon twigged that the “dated” in the preamble led to 1666 in Roman Numerals.

    I struggled with the map itself and had help from my socially distanced daughter – 230km away.

    I really enjoyed the puzzle and I’d recommend climbing all 311 steps of The Monument to anyone, though I don’t imagine it’s open at the moment as social distancing would be impossible.

    Many thanks to Harpy and Hihoba

  21. Guy @18
    Of your observations on the completed grid, I would guess that the first one, about the letters of THAMES, just has to be by design. I didn’t notice it, and I now think it’s an amazing feat. The rest I would say are purely by chance.

  22. @GuyBarry

    To be fair, it’s made clear (by implication) in the preamble that the letters of Thames are restricted to two rows – that’s kind of the point?

  23. Guy Barry,  I certainly didn’t spot the grid properties that you have noted. The THAMES letter restriction must be intentional, but I re-read the rubric and I can’t read into it the implication Bingybing mentions at #22. The downwind letters are interesting, but I can only think they are accidental. Downwind should be at the left hand edge of the area for them to have any meaning. It would be really nice to hear from Harpy (Charibdis or Ploy – see #6) about this!

  24. @22: The actual wording in the preamble is “an adjacent feature contains only the letters of its name”, i.e. only the letters of THAMES appear in those two rows.  As pointed out in #23, this doesn’t of itself imply that the letters of THAMES appear only in those two rows.

    The commonest letters in English are generally taken to be ETAOIN SHRDLU, which means that Harpy has constructed the rest of the grid without five of the eight commonest letters in the language – quite a feat!

  25. Hi everybody. Thanks, firstly, to Hihoba for such a generous and detailed blog on the puzzle by Ploy and myself, AKA Harpy.  It is much appreciated, as are the various comments. It’s not quite our debut [2008!] but roughly Harpy#8, I think – plus  another three as 2/3 of Plench [with Enigmatist]. Indeed it was Enigmatist who set the ball rolling with his observation that the upcoming ‘1666’ was, somewhat remarkably, MDCLXVI, i.e. each Roman numeral appearing once and once only.
    I think it’s fair to say this became a tricky solve, and sorry it understandably proved too tricky for some, but successful solvers did end up with a correctly dated map of the fire area, including start and finish points, the direction of the wind, and inclusion of the Thames.
    Guy at #24 is spot on about the tricky gridfill from the setting standpoint. Most of the grid did indeed have to be filled without using T,H,A,M,E,S or P. [The ‘Pudding and Pye’ business being a happy coincidence that we harnessed]. For example there is a choice of roughly 21,000 6-letter words but, with those restrictions, it becomes a mere 642! Both setters attempted several fills of the fire area but, bar minor details, this was literally the only one that we could make work!
    As it happens, another Harpy is due to appear very shortly in another place if anyone can bear it!!

  26. Thank you Charibdis #25 for your helpful addition. I thought this was a debut Inquisitor puzzle as there is only this one entry under Harpy in HolyGhost’s Inquisitor Index. Have you been setting under a different pseudonym, or were you referring to crosswords other than Inquisitor? Or, indeed, have we missed some?

  27. Hi Hihoba. I see you are quite right that this is indeed Harpy’s debut Inquisitor, – and only our 6th ‘flight’ all told, though we are being let out again this Saturday in the Times Listener slot.

    I was probably vaguely factoring in that we have been two thirds of the Plench team on four occasions now, all Inquisitors, beginning with a slightly notorious pair of Groundhog Day puzzles that mischievously appeared to be a mistaken repeat in successive weeks! Apart from that we have appeared twice previously in The Listener, and three times in the amazing Magpie crossword magazine.

    I’m slightly surprised to see that I’ve appeared solo as Charybdis 75 times in The Independent starting in 1990. Rather slower output these days!

  28. Charybdis @25: puzzle #1299 by Lato was also based on MDCLXVI having each Roman numeral appearing once and only once, with The Great Fire of London & Pudding Lane featuring thematically.

    kenmac had a nightmare blogging it – he probably isn’t going to enjoy being reminded …

    (For what it’s worth, I found the rubric of this one, #1666, a bit too vague so needed a good few nudges to get me over the line.)

  29. I managed to fill in the grid, but that’s all I can claim as a success. Even with the detailed explanation above I can’t work out the end game. The Ps as a start and end point indicated by “hints” was too obscure for me. I’ve looked again and I can’t see any indication that seven down clues have to be altered on entry either.

     

    This is an extremely clever puzzle and I am totally blown away by the skill it’s taken to compile it, but it feels a little bit exclusive to me with quite a lot of guessing as to what is meant to happen next.

     

    Another London based puzzle. Other areas of the UK are available.

  30. Some comments (including #29) have mentioned that there was no indication in the rubric about the gaps in the entries for several words. I had no trouble with this as the rubric clearly stated A line of 7 empty cells in the completed grid must be filled appropriately. There were two blanks on row 10 in columns 9 and 10, so there must be another 5 blanks adjacent to these. As columns 1-4 and 11-14 were occupied, there had to be blanks in row 10 columns 5 to 11. The clues for these five answers clearly indicated one letter shorter than the space available, so . . .

    London centric? Well yes, but difficult to be anything else in Inquisitor 1666

  32. @30: “The clues for these five answers clearly indicated one letter shorter than the space available”.

    I don’t think so.  The clue for 33 down indicated three letters, and the usual practice is to enter letters in adjacent cells.  Had I not been told otherwise I’d have entered them in rows 8, 9 and 10.  Similarly I’d have entered the last letters of 34, 35, 19 and 30 down in row 10, giving UWDNYYOY–LJOG as the completed row 10.  Row 11 would still have read LINGYYOYOBLOWY, because of the Across clues.  I’d have ended up with an awful lot of Y’s and O’s at the bottom, but the grid looks so strange that this might well have been an intended feature.

    To me, the instructions implied “if the grid is filled in normally, there will be a row of seven adjacent empty cells”.  If the solver was meant to enter answers in a non-standard fashion to create the row of empty cells, then I think this should have been explicitly specified in the preamble.  I haven’t been doing these puzzles very long but have there been other occasions when solvers were expected to make modifications to entries that weren’t specified in some way?

  33. @31: The software seemed to have interpreted my two hyphens as a dash.  I meant UWDNYYOY__LJOG (two spaces).

  35. Hi, Guy @32. I’m sorry you didn’t manage to finish this one. We’ve all been there! I can remember years ago staring in bafflement at numerous solutions to thematic crosswords before getting the hang of these things.

    I think of a good thematic as a bout of judo where the setter is trying to throw the solver off balance but ideally wants every solver to win – but only after a good old tussle.  Obviously this is impossible as not all solvers are yet black belts, as it were, and so are bound to lose a bout or two [as I still do, speaking as a solver].
    I think this one was on the tough side, but I do think it was actually fair. The preamble specified that the grid is a “dated [sic] map” – which is either a gratuitously redundant word [very unlikely] or a significant clue. We also wrote “A line of 7 empty cells in the completed grid must be completed appropriately” and “giving six new intersecting words” and I don’t think your comment satisfactorily meets any of these points.
    I do wish you luck with your future solving, though. And if you fancy getting revenge on Harpy you can buy today’s Times and tackle the Listener puzzle. Good luck! 🙂

  36. Getbacktome @34: Yes other events happened in 1666, including the plague, but at school (a VERY long time ago) certain dates stuck out. 1588 Armada, 1603 death of Queen Elizabeth accession of James I/VI and 1666 Great fire of London – the latter was of course immortalised by Pepys. I never considered any other possibility, which made solving the puzzle easier than it would otherwise have been!

    I stick by my comment at #30, now backed up by Charybdis at #35. It wasn’t too hard to locate the 7 blanks. I’ve seen much worse misdirection in Inquisitor rubric in the distant past.

  37. @35: “I’m sorry you didn’t manage to finish this one”.

    I did finish it, as I said earlier in the thread (#2), and I’m not sure what gave you the impression that I didn’t.  However, I only finished it after being told that five Down entries had to be entered with a blank space in them.

    I got the clue about “dated” very early on, before I had any idea about where to put the date.  Whether I’d have guessed that I had to create five extra blank cells in order to accommodate the date, I very much doubt.  The insertion of the date did indeed create six new intersecting words, but that information was only of any use after I knew to create the extra blank cells.

    I think a couple of extra words in the preamble would have been helpful, e.g. “a line of 7 empty cells in the completed grid must be created and filled appropriately, giving six new intersecting words”.

  38. @38. OK. Though I’m not sure how how you would fill 7 empty cells if they weren’t there to be filled. But congratulations on a correct solve

  40. I enjoyed this immensely. I had to really work at it, but enjoyed plenty of small victories along the way.

    I spent way too long looking for George Villiers (from a common (mis)attribution to Georgie Porgie!) roads north of the Thames. But got to the fire eventually.

    I struggled with the 7 empty cells.
    I didn’t think that it was clear that the answers were one letter short (as some have said above) because there were no grid lines to make that clear.
    But I had a couple of empty cells, so concluded the rest were adjacent. And I had too many duplicated letters in the down clues there to be coincidence: ary+y, mary+y, too+o, merl+l.
    I had felt some hint was missing,
    but as I got there in the end, I guess it was nicely pitched.

    Filling the 7 cells was going nowhere – I couldn’t make a word with an X from rondeauX. Then “dated” in the rubric suddenly assumed an importance and I got it.

    Lovely, thank you 😉

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