Inquisitor 1676: Hands Across the Sea by Ifor

12 comments on “Inquisitor 1676: Hands Across the Sea by Ifor”

1. If you don’t have a copy of the ODQ then the quotation was extremely difficult to Google, especially if your Spanish is non-existent. 🙂 I therefore ended up trying to work out who might have been born and died on the days / months given, which thankfully didn’t take too long, throwing up Cervantes, and then the quote. Which is a bit backward, but it works.

   Lots going on with the puzzle, both in the preamble and execution, but I got there in the end, and thought it a rewarding solve.

2. Once I worked out that the quote was in Spanish, Cervantes seemed the most likely source, and fortunately there are only a dozen quotations in the ODQ by him (in both Spanish and English, although only the English translation is indexed) so it didn’t take long to complete it and get his birth and death dates. I had a couple of question marks against clues I couldn’t parse (e.g. “arrival” in 11ac – isn’t ET the alien, not is arrival?) but I made a stupid error at 28 down (entering GRANTER instead of GRANTOR) which made 41 across impossible. Lots of 3 and 4 letter words with quite long clues – e.g. 35 ac, which I always find a little intimidating. I liked the device used in 21 ac (“primes” to indicate the 2nd, 3rd and 5th letters) which I hadn’t seen before.

3. It’s brilliant in retrospect. I pretty much filled the grid, but, at a busy time, abandoned ship when I saw how obscure the quote was shaping to be. I think ‘alien arrival’ is fair for ET. Thanks to Ifor and HolyGhost

4. All thanks to Ifor and HG. I actually knew the quotation, but only in English (Martin Gardner was fond of quoting it when he wrote about card tricks). Even when I’d got to the Spanish from frantic Googling, the left- and right-hand columns remained obscure — not helped by my unbrilliant insight that the two words on the left looked as though they might together form an anagram of PASTEBOARDS. Eventually I remembered reading somewhere that our own “spades” came from “espadas” …

5. Took me ages to find the quote. I had the first 5 of the 7 blocks of 3, but with 4 possible combinations in the last 2 of them. Couldn’t decide on NCIAYB, CINAYB, NCIYBA, or CINYBA. I eventually spotted the symmetry. I guessed OROS from 31d, which then gave me the Spanish suits.
   I had the correct 4 clues marked, although not the exact letters, but forgot to go back to pick out the English suits.

6. Well above my pay grade so thanks for the blog-as mentioned, looking up DIG or DIGO gives very little non English in the OBQ, just a couple o DIGNUMS.I found this quotation was in book 2, chapter 23 and not spoken by DQ.Very clever. Too clever for this bear o small brain

7. This was a DNF for us. We had the complete grid fill but puzzled for a long time over the quotation. We searched online and in a book of quotations (Collins not Oxford) for anything to do with cards but found nothing. Maybe if we had realised the quotation was in spanish we would have got somewhere. A quick search on possible birth and death dates didn’t get us anywhere either.

   Still, we have no complaints. When we saw Ifor’s name we knew we were in for an enjoyable challenge which is exactly what we got. Ifor continues to rank as one of our favourite, if not the favourite IQ setters. Many thanks for the workout Ifor.

   Thanks HG for the blog – have a good Christmas.

8. It’s a bit shameful to admit, but I was standing in the queue at my local shop to buy this copy of the “i” that weekend and when I turned to the Inquisitor page and saw that it was an Ifor that week, I put it back on the shelf and walked out.

9. Fortunately my edition of ODQ gives quotations in the original language as well as the English translation (I believe later versions don’t), so a trawl through the index for entries containing “cards” eventually paid dividends. I’m not sure if it would have been possible to find the quotation without ODQ if you didn’t recognise the language as Spanish. I’m not keen on final stages which take longer than the grid fill, but this was satisfying to complete, as you’d expect from an Ifor puzzle.

10. I sometimes find Ifor’s clues rather verbose, but these were mostly concise and a pleasure to solve. As has been pointed out the quotation was impossible to find in ODQ via the index. I suspected it was Spanish, but had no definite idea. Fortunately I was able to email a Spanish-speaking friend with what I had (with the middle triplet missing as I hadn’t solved 26 across). He replied with the Cervantes quote.

    I’m not surprised several struggled to find the quote and some gave up. I find long, unfocused internet searches very frustrating, but avoided that on this occasion. A hint or pointer would have been helpful to many.

11. Ylo. After this one I might do the same myself next time.

12. Many thanks to HG for the typically comprehensive blog, and to everyone who shared their solving experience. A few thoughts: One correspondent told me that “it seemed likely that at least one of paciencia and barajar was a single word – google translated them and both English equivalents indexed the quote in ODQ.” I’d intended that the title and the apparently superfluous “suitably” in the preamble would assist with the endgame. And (in reply to HG) editors prefer to avoid the more nuanced should, might, can etc: indeed, as you probably know, had this been a Listener you’d have been faced with the stern admonition that “solvers must…”

    My thanks to all the blogging team for their sterling work over the year, as well as to all the regular commenters. I hope that we can continue to amicably cross swords over next year.

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