Inquisitor 1702: Heavenly Deductions by Dysart

14 comments on “Inquisitor 1702: Heavenly Deductions by Dysart”

1. A roughly similar experience here — long struggle but ultimately satisfying. When BY MEANS OF ARROWS came clear, I guessed PREDICTION from the title, which was of course no help with the first six clues until DIVINATION came to mind. For some reason the NE corner seemed hardest and BELO(W) resisted until very nearly the end.

   Many thanks to Dysart and Hihoba. Is the highlighted “symmetrical shape” supposed to suggest Nostradamus’s crystal ball?

2. What a great blog. Not only am I a couple of brain cells short but at least one app short. Apple are too stingy to sell a computer with a CD drive so I may go back to my Mac Mini which i think has a copy of office.
   I’ll need to study this in the light of day

   I am terrible at links bu there is an ep of The Sopranos where Quasimodo and Nostradamus get linked-like an old Dylan song

3. I enjoyed the crossword, savouring some excellent clues, and it was satisfying to get all the letters from the Across clues and all eight words from the Downs. The Chambers definition led me to Belomancy – and thence to BELO[W] at 18a.

   However, I could not get very far with the theme. When I got stuck trying to match all eight words to possible ‘remnants’ in the grid, I took a rest from grid-gazing and turned my attention to finding the practitioner. I identified the repeated NS couplet but It didn’t lead me to anything, and despite looking up both print and online references for anyone who might have something to do with divination I found no-one. I was happy enough to give up at that point and wait for the solution.

   Thanks to Dysart anyway for a well-crafted and challenging crossword and to Hihoba for finding and explaining the thematic bits.

4. Excellent, rewarding challenge, and very satisfying grid fill at the end. Some wonderful clues as usual from Dysart too.

   Thanks to setter and blogger.

5. I can’t recall an Inquisitor where I was left with so many questions about the parsing – some clues felt more like hand-to-hand combat – so many thanks to Hihoba.

   But thanks to Dysart too, as the theme did emerge very nicely and it ended very satisfyingly. For no good reason, my Nostradamus in unsymmetrical, using the ‘o’ of populace, and looks like a sinister cowled figure.

6. It took a long time to see what was going on with the omissions and the -mancies, but I finally crawled over the finish line with a satisfied sigh.

7. My heart sank when I read the preamble – not another stiffy, that’s 6 in a row (although I may have lost count). I found the first sentence confusing: “spell” rather than”give” would have made it clearer. The fog began to clear as more across clues were solved and I was able to guess the definition. Looking for it Chambers would have been a haystack job so I looked up divination in my trusty Bradford and saw all these “-mancy”s. By then, I had half of the extra words in the down clues and this list helped me find the rest and hence, confirming in Chambers, which letters to delete. I was then left with BELO, KOTO and LOLO as the “relevant” prefix and luckily picked on the correct one first. I guessed that N…S had to be NOSTRADAMUS and, sure enough, there it was in the middle. Ultimately, a bumpy start leading to an enjoyable and satisfying conclusion.
   Thanks to Dysart and Hihoba.

8. A definite crawl here – I’ve never been less certain I would fill a grid. Satisfying to finish though, with an endgame that fell together very nicely.

9. A good, solid puzzle from Dysart – tough but enjoyable. No serious hold-ups, just slow steady progress. Thanks.
   (Symmetrical placing of the various -MANCY’s duly noted.)

   And thanks to Hi for explaining the role of “fed” in 39a.

10. A lovely puzzle and I assume the shape of Nostradamus was meant to be an eye?

11. HG #9 39a was the last one Ho and I parsed. We knew it was fed, but I wasn’t too happy about got=grew – there is no definition link in Chambers.

12. just catching up… I confidently had XOSA for 37d which of course led me (astray) to XIZANG for 37a until I course corrected.

    What’s interesting is that X,O’,SA parses quite nicely (if you ignore “uncle”)

13. Hi @12.14 Chambers has ‘become’ under both GET and GROW with the same sense of meaning. As I became/got/grew older…’. Not easy, but I’d say that it is a sound synonym, and it passes the substitution test.

14. Thank you John Nick #13. I appreciate your finding. I searched without spotting the synonym. That makes 39a much more satisfactory!

Comments are closed.