Inquisitor 1713: Eyedrops by Jaques

21 comments on “Inquisitor 1713: Eyedrops by Jaques”

1. Some of the clues took me a long time to solve, but I had to admire the way that they were divided using that original device of a redundant letter. It was a very good set of clues. For a few of them I had to wait for the emerging quotation to confirm the position of the extra letter.

   From the source of the quotation I should have realised that the ‘earlier situation (12 letters)’ would have been something to indicate a rainy day, but in my rush to a resolution of the theme I focused mistakenly on the writer’s eyes and eyesight. Changing TWENTY/TWENTY to TWENTY/THIRTY would indicate an earlier state of less clear eyesight. Changing WIRED to HIRED and NATTER to RATTER would accomplish that with one orientation of the grid but not the other.

   I am kind of proud of this alternative resolution, but it’s obviously not what was intended! As a consolation, I was lucky that my completed grid had the correct orientation, but what I wrote underneath it was incorrect.

   Thanks to Jaques and duncanshiell.

2. The device was a new one here too, but one that worked well and left me for once with all the letters I needed to get the lyric, and then the unclued entry. Predictably I entered the grids in the wrong order, but, well, that’s what scissors and sellotape are made for, isn’t it? Enjoyable throughout with a theme that hung together satisfyingly well.

3. Got the grids in the right order, but that pure luck still didn’t enable to me to discern the rain, as, like Alan B, I was hell-bent on an eye condition that remained elusive for reasons that are now very clear. Must be less (or more?) literal.

   I agree that the generation of letters was cleverly done (though there was no actual need to solve the clues in the bottom half to crack the puzzle, and my south-west was pretty threadbare. But thanks to Jaques and duncanshiell.

4. Nice Inquisitor, and the split clues were clever and at times very difficult, but to my mind at least, the finish here was very poor. I wondered what TWENTY TWENTY had replaced, but just couldn’t come up with the necessary phrase (naturally I assumed that the song lyrics might actually mention the replacement, and so worked on them), but no, turns out that it’s just some randon synonym for rain. PITTER-PATTER just feels too random, way too big a leap, and with only a single difference (I or A) to determine which side of the grid goes where, it really does stretch credulity.

   So another DNF recorded for me … but for once I actually feel a little bit cheated.

   I’m almost tempted to demand my £1.20 back !!! … only joking, thanks to all.

5. All thanks to Jaques and duncanshiell. Interesting challenge with a nice fresh feel. Like everyone else I was very taken with the one-letter separators in clues. TWENTY TWENTY seemed obvious enough early on, but just like @1 and @3 above I got stuck — with help from the artfully misdirecting title — on eye problems conceivably fixed by eyedrops. Even though the (Googled) lyrics say plainly enough that the problem was rain, it took an embarrassingly long time before I heard the pitter-patter of little insights.

6. What me_sat said. Far too random a finish – file under the ‘guess what I’m thinking’ category of setting.

   On a wholly unrelated note, when – if ever – are we actually going to be able to submit finished puzzles for prizes again?

7. @4 Me_sat_here_at_home PITTER-PATTER is derived by looking at what other letters will fit the crossing down clues. It is I believe the only possibility.

8. @7 Jon_S

   I think you are right with PITTER-PATTER as the only word in Chambers that will fit and generate real down entries, but one tool I have suggests TITTER TATTER, TO A CERTAINTY and TURNIP-TAILED as other alternatives but none of them are in a dictionary I have access to and none of them make any sense in relation to the puzzle.

   If you swap the grids round, PHILIPPISTIC will fit. There is reference to a PHILIPPISTIC doctrine on the internet, but again the word makes no sense in the context of the puzzle

9. Fab puzzle, I enjoyed this a lot. I didn’t have any problem with PITTER-PATTER, I derived it from the letters that would leave real words in the down clues.
   There was a clear reason why it was this phrase and not just some random thing Jaques may have thought of.

   Thanks to all.

10. PeeDee @9
    Obviously one can have no problem as such with PITTER-PATTER because it is a perfect match for the first line of the verse (‘I can see clearly now the rain is gone’. The only problem some people had was in thinking of or finding that phrase.
    I acknowledge that my ‘alternative solution’ (TWENTY/THIRTY) was inferior (requiring only two letter changes and not referencing the rain), but I was quite pleased to be contacted by a friend yesterday who said that she had exactly the same solution as mine!

11. @10 Alan_B Isn’t it the point though that we didn’t have to think of the phrase? I certainly didn’t, but just looked at what other letters would fit the crossing clues in the top row, which gives you the phrase. We’ve had to do so similarly in many previous Inquisitors.

12. This one seems to have split the crowd a little, but I certainly enjoyed it. I made a list of all the possible outcomes of the downs on the top row and patiently worked through them before the rain appeared. Like others I admired the single letter separation technique. My thanks to Jaques and Duncan

13. Jon_S @11
    Good point, especially because I would not have ‘thought of’ the phrase myself – I would have had to ‘find’ it in the way that you and others did. As it happens, all eight crossers changed – a very neat but not a necessary outcome.
    As you know, I took another approach, which was to change 20/20 to an expression representing (earlier) less clear vision. It avoided the rain, but that was not the best way to go in hindsight.

14. I, too, failed at the last hurdle, focusing on eyes not rain. My best offering was POOR EYESIGHT which obviously didn’t fit.

    I liked the fact that TWENTY TWENTY meant it didn’t matter which side you chose for which clues, but conversely I didn’t like that PITTER PATTER does mean there is a ‘correct’ side, by which time surely you would have entered all the answers.

    Nonetheless enjoyable, thank you.

15. Alan B @ 10 – I have a lot of sympathy for the “guess what I’m thinking” feeling. My heart sinks when I see a wordsearch endgame with instruction “there is something hidden in the grid, go find it”. That’s why I particularly liked this ending, I was guided to the solution. The shading helped point out what to change, the song lyrics tell me what to expect and the “real words in he final grid” instruction gave me a list of letters to choose from. I was actually able to deduce an endgame for once rather than just guess-and-check.

    I think it helped to be familiar with the song and recognize “I can see clearly now the rain has gone” as being a well known line in pop music. If you don’t know the song then I can imagine how it is not immediately obvious you have hit on the key to the puzzle, even if you did stumble across it on Wikipedia.

    Many years ago I heard a comedian sing a satirized version of this song about his relationship issues :”I can see Dierdre now Lorraine has gone…”. Sadly I can’t remember any more of the lyrics.

16. PeeDee @15
    Well said – you have explained exactly what was so good about the thematic design of this puzzle. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know the song like you did – I looked up the words about the sunshiny day and found the title that I should have taken more notice of.
    I very rarely ‘stumble across’ themes or thematic items, by the way, because I practically never do wild Internet searches of the sort that many solvers use in order to crack themes, that is, bung in words to see if they are connected and, if they are, take advantage of what Google has delivered. [There is nothing wrong with this approach, of course – it’s just that I don’t use it.] If I know nothing about a setter’s theme I do expect to be given a hint or pointer of some sort, or something I can look up. This puzzle delivered!

17. A late contribution as we have been away and I am still in the process of catching up with my IQs. I found this one quite a challenge and, although I managed to complete the grid, I did not fully parse all the clues – I know a number of English Muriels so missed the Scottish reference in STENDHAL.

    The main comment I wish to make concerns the clue for STEDDE, which I totally mis-parsed. I took Ed’s spot to be a clever definition for LEADER (as in a newspaper), justified by reversing ED in LEAR (another Edward), although admittedly this made the wording a bit clumsy, stopping being preferable to stop in this case. I was so convinced that this was correct that I assumed the clash with REDESCEND was intentional and others would be found. Consequently, I had YARE in the wrong half and, until I had corrected my error, could not fill some of my remaining gaps in the top sections.
    I am surprised that none of the above commenters fell into this trap. Perhaps one day, a setter will use a tidied up version of my interpretation! It would be a shame to waste it as it would have been quite impressive.
    Like others, I found the endgame beyond me as I was looking for visual impairments rather than precipitation and, anyway, I don’t think I would have found PITTER-PATTER.

18. Dave W @17
    I’m as surprised as you are that I did not come up with LEADER before STEDDE – it’s a very plausible answer and just as easy to ‘see’ as the intended answer, if not easier. I’m guessing a couple of crossers might have pointed me to the right answer first time.
    As for going the visual impairment route, I’d like to say you’re in good company, as you and I were not the only ones! (I took it all the way.)

19. I’m in the “PITTER-PATTER is OK” group, though it had taken me until quite near the end to tumble to TWENTY-TWENTY. Apart from the mention of “rain” in the lyrics, I thought that “drops” in the title was a hefty nudge in that direction.
    Thanks to all.

20. Very late to the party but better late than never.

    Welcome to the IQ Jacques and thanks for a very enjoyable puzzle. The PITTER-PATTER took much longer to sort out than it should have done. Our fault, not yours!

    Thanks Duncan for the blog.

21. Late to the party as I only solved the endgame this afternoon – I had gone so far and was reluctant to give up, knowing that in an IQ would only have one solution and all loose ends would be tied up. I did a lot of grid searching and after no joy, started on the top line – CUMULONIMBUS and NIMBOSTRATUS (the dark clouds) until working on the possible changed down clues led to PITTER-PATTER. A lot of reverse engineering needed – maybe 1A could have been clued, creating 8 clashes that would be resolved at the end? Anyway, a cautious welcome to Jaques and thanks to both setter and duncanshiell

Comments are closed.