Nimrod – aah, our esteemed editor. 
I hope I fare better with this than with his previous offering (#1721 Hole), my greatest failure to date.
Preamble: Clues – all normal – are numbered in alphabetical order of their answers and grouped for convenience in order of solution lengths. Solvers should fit answers into the grid, jigsaw-wise, wherever they will go. In the completed grid, solvers must enter a letter in each of the coloured cells to show that they have correctly identified four thematic representations. (The colours themselves are arbitrarily chosen, but each colour applies to a given representation.) A thematic name is framed by two clue answers of the same length. Two answers are abbreviations; 13 is in Collins.
I didn’t find the grouping of the clues (in order of solution lengths) very convenient so I’ve presented them in alphabetical order of the answers.
Last week’s puzzle was hard but doable, the previous two were easy, and 4 weeks ago (me) was very hard; 4 weeks before that (me again) was also very tough. Now we have this week’s offering from the editor and … I’m beginning to think that someone’s got it in for me.
Started on Tuesday (had to finish the previous week’s left over from holiday) and managed to solve 29/53 clues, including two of the 9-letter words, one of the 7-s, and all bar one of the 3-s: SORTILEGE would fit in col 6, TRIATOMIC in row 3, with SECEDES in col 13. Next day I finished the 3-s: two of these had to intersect in row 3, col 1 with their leading Ns and, depending on which two, two others had to intersect in row 11, col 13 with their trailing Cs or Ds. So I ventured NAM across and NEC down, the former fitting with MORRA and the latter with ENOL, which themselves meshed nicely together. 
And so, shortly after dinner on Wednesday, the top half was pretty much filled in and the bottom right quadrant was well under way.
Finished entering the answers before (a late) bedtime, but the wordplay for three of them was giving me grief. My notes-to-self read “effort/pay-off ratio on the low side for me”. I returned to the puzzle mid-afternoon for a spot of grid-staring … just before dinner I figured out what went in the yellow cells – ASCENDING & DESCENDING – and could pick out a split ESCHER towards the bottom right, leading me to the theme. 
I managed the blue and the pink – WATER & BELVEDERE – just before breaking for the 10 o’clock news, and nearly an hour later I filled in the grey one – DRAWINGHAND…. I reckoned I was done and called it a day.
I felt obliged to shade various cells to illustrate the four Escher prints. Adjusted BELVEDERE in favour of symmetry (there are alternatives for the leading BE and the trailing ERE); and also DRAWINGHAND/DRAWINGHAND, each D neatly doing double duty; finally, I noticed that up till now I’d omitted to shade FALL adjacent to WATER. Take your pick as to whether you prefer to complete 3 AESC with 22 HERE or 23 HERS – either way it feels like using “framed” is a tad uncommon.
Thanks Nimrod – a few quirky clues, and I still haven’t fathomed the wordplay for SPINET at 43.
Added later: M.C. Escher died on 27 March 1972
| No. | Clue | Answer | Wordplay |
| 1 | Drink in the world of the matlo? (6) | ABSORB | AB’S (of the matlo) ORB (world) |
| 2 | One intro from Elbow introducing presenter of music award (7) | ADJUDGE | A (one) (n)UDGE (Elbow ¬ first) around DJ (presenter of music) |
| 3 | One key character in English history (4) | AESC | A (one) ESC (key) |
| 4 | I’ll help young woman out of clothing (4) | AIDE | (m)AIDE(n) (young woman ¬ first & last) |
| 5 | Dog rose deserted (6) | BRIARD | BRIAR (rose) D(eserted) |
| 6 | Due to botched nursing, I disappear (6, 2 words) | DIE OUT | [DUE TO]* arounf I |
| 7 | Accepting place to join order, adult passed with honour (9) | DIPLOMAED | PL(ace) OM (order) A(dult) in DIED (passed) |
| 8 | Ape caught by medic (3) | DOC | DO (ape) C(aught) |
| 9 | Love a little bird on a high-wire (5) | DONAH | (bir)D ON A H(igh-wire) |
| 10 | Approach dark Australian city, right to left (6, 2 words) | DRAW IN | DARWIN (Australian city) with R(ight) moved left |
| 11 | Where Italians may worship Lord – refined, I think, looking up (5) | DUOMI | D (Lord) U (refined) IMO (I think) |
| 12 | Close partially open doors (3) | END | (op)EN D(oors) |
| 13 | Turn left by a compound (4) | ENOL | L(eft) ONE (a) all< |
| 14 | Visitor from afar waiting by rank (4) | ÉTAT | ET (visitor from afar) AT (by) |
| 15 | Militant Palestinians less agile now, do we hear? (5) | FATAH | homophone: FATTER (less agile?) |
| 16 | Morally weak pork-pie trader about to have fine slapped on (5) | FRAIL | LIAR< (pork-pie trader) after F(ine) |
| 17 | Old camel-driver apprehended by dog-handler (4) | GHAN | (do)G-HAN(dler) {not in Chambers, so presumably in ODE} |
| 18 | G&T round ordered up with one in is extremely unlikely to slip down! (9) | GLAIRIEST | G T around SERIAL< (ordered) around I (one) |
| 19 | Agent Beta’s successor at odds with M’s successor (4) | G-MAN | G(a)M(m)A (beta’s successor) N (M’s successor) |
| 20 | Visitor’s no time for Shetland music-makers (4) | GUES | GUEST (visitor) ¬ T(ime) |
| 21 | Numbskull out of cloth acquires a navy linen (4) | HARN | CLOTH ¬ CLOT (numbskull) A RN (navy) |
| 22 | I’m not sure – what about my place? (4) | HERE | ER (I’m not sure) EH (what) all< |
| 23 | Science institution not initially under female ownership? (4) | HERS | (t)HE RS (science institution ¬ first) |
| 24 | River meadows up north – titular pirates, yeomen and gondoliers here? (4) | INGS | IN G&S (Gilbert & Sullivan titles) |
| 25 | The Halifax Arms and the St Lawrence’s Head here? (4) | INNS | IN NS (Nova Scotia), could be names of pubs |
| 26 | F1 great talking over all others on broadcast? (5) | LAUDA | homophone: LOUDER (talking over all others) |
| 27 | Mike Cameron’s odd guessing game (5) | MORRA | M(ike) ORRA (odd, Scot) |
| 28 | Took 20C war zone (3) | NAM | double definition |
| 29 | Sheets of moving rock jerks inserted in bridge’s erection (6) | NAPPES | PE (jerks) in SPAN< (bridge) |
| 30 | “Fine complex” describes it (3) | NEC | (fi)NE C(omplex) &lit |
| 31 | I won’t fly north over shores of Honshu (6) | NHANDU | N(prth) H AND U (Honshu, first & last) |
| 32 | Man identified carrying bird’s nest out of the ark (3) | NID | (ma)N ID(entified) |
| 33 | Former Fields in Trust supporter first to promote cycling (4) | NPFA | FAN (supporter) P(romote) cycled |
| 34 | It’s an ____ whose order’s resolved in summation (6) | OMNIUM | [IN SUMMATION]* ¬ [IT’S AN]* &lit |
| 35 | Daily date with Matsuyama’s ending after tricksy par 5 (6) | PRAVDA | D(ate) (Matsuyam)A [PAR]* V (5) |
| 36 | Fieldwork – awfully drab and lean out of lab (5) | REDAN | [DRAB LEAN ¬ LAB]* |
| 37 | Priests regularly omitted to soak (3) | RET | (p)R(i)E(s)T(s) |
| 38 | Mac’s relishing a Bell’s after conclusion of business (6) | SARING | A RING (bell) after (busines)S |
| 39 | Change necessitated, but no titan withdraws (7) | SECEDES | [NECESSITATES ¬ TITAN]* |
| 40 | Consider correct charges for returning computers (6, 2 words) | SEE FIT | FEES< (charges) IT (computers) |
| 41 | High note breaks silence, causing pause in OT reading? (5) | SELAH | E-LA (high) in SH (silence) |
| 42 | The first sound to accompany spinning laundry? (4) | SHWA | WASH (laundry) cycled |
| 43 | Convey to Listener function (4) | SIGN | homophone: SINE (function) |
| 44 | Foot of title-page not entirely nonsensical (4) | SILL | SILL(y) (nonsensical) |
| 45 | Sally carries on divination (9) | SORTILEGE | SORTIE (sally) around LEG (on) |
| 46 | Circulate two bob in copper instrument (6) | SPINET | TEN 1 P’S (10p = 2 shillings, pre-decimal currency) {see comment 1} |
| 47 | English rockers applied for tabs? (5) | SUEDE | SUED (applied for) E (tabs) |
| 48 | Calling out, labourer on estate waves (4) | SURF | homophone: SERF (labourer on estate) |
| 49 | Revised outer trios in elaborate rhythmic patterns (6) | TALEAE | [ELA(bor)ATE]* |
| 50 | Sacred places support outside followers (6) | TEMENE | TEE (support) around MEN (followers) |
| 51 | As water molecules dispersed it, I’m with actor (9) | TRIATOMIC | [IT I’M ACTOR]* |
| 52 | Empty union proposal using cut from supplier? (6) | UNPLUG | U(nio)N PLUG (proposal) |
| 53 | Bath now cold? (4) | WASH | WAS H(ot) (now cold?) |
SPINET is TEN 1P’s backwards. And for those of us old enough to remember, two bob became 10p in 1971. So “10p in copper (coins)”.
By far the hardest Inquisitor for quite some time – a real slog his one. I couldn’t parse 11 & 46, so thanks to HolyGhost for the explanation for 11 & to TonyG @1 for 46. Endgame felt a little bit like random guesswork to me – the theme was just not very obvious to me at all, which was a real shame as this was a wonderfully tough puzzle – so a DNF recorded by me this week – close, but no cigar – yet still a fun struggle!
Many thanks to Nimrod for a very difficult but thoroughly enjoyable puzzle, to HolyGhost for the blog and to fellow commenters for sharing their thoughts.
My favourite Inquisitor of all time, I think. When I finally saw the DRAWING HANDS (note the S, HolyGhost), it made my whole day brighter! Anybody not familiar with this lithograph should definitely google it.
In my my mind, Nimrod = “this’ll be hard work”, and so it turned out. Having said that, I’m not a fan of the ‘jigsaw’ ones at the best of times – it just feels like you’re staring at the same clues over and over again, with relatively little new information to help you.
Got there in the end with a lot of friendly assistance, and I thought the end game was rather clever, helped along by “ascending and descending” pointing towards Escher – it was easy enough after that.
I then spent a little while looking at the coloured letters – D D A L D I – to see if they could be rearranged into a new word or other meaning, but I suppose not?
Thank you to nimrod, I guess 🙂
PS – Parsing was very tricky in places and I got stumped by NHANDU, which I have as a tarantula, as opposed to NANDU, the flightless Rhea?
A full grid here that took rather a lot of time, but I came badly unstuck on what to put in the squares at the close. ASCENDING / DESCENDING was clear enough, but as for the rest… I guessed STARS, FISH / BIRDS (both are Escher paintings, though whether those are their “official” names?) Above DRAWING HANDS I went with an O to complete the TWO, because there were… Two hands. I will admit that was my most desperate, final stab.
An engaging puzzle then that kept me occupied for some time, but ultimately too clever for me!
The word jigsaws I most enjoy are those where I manage to identify a reasonably small subset of clues whose answers can most likely be placed in the grid early on and then set about cold-solving them before any others. In this puzzle I reckoned that getting all four 9-letter and both 7-letter words would give me the best start, and my first session working on this puzzle was taken up wholly with this task. The clue to GLAIRIEST was the most stubborn, and ADJUDGE was not that easy either, but the main thing is that I got them all. I then spent two more long but very enjoyable sessions solving the remaining clues and entering the answers when I was sure of their placement.
In the absence of any hint or pointer to the theme I had a look around the grid and fortunately did not have to wait long for DESCENDING to appear (almost), and on the opposite side ASCENDING. I duly filled in the yellow squares. BELVEDERE soon followed, but WATERFALL and DRAWING HANDS took rather longer. I first looked for ESCHER in a region such as that ‘framed’ by HARN and HERS, but ESC and HER turned up in that corner ‘framed’ by AESC and HERS (respectively).
This was another great Inquisitor experience, made so largely by the quality of the clues. The endgame was a bonus.
Thanks to Nimrod and HolyGhost.
As usual with Nimrod puzzles, I approached this one with some trepidation. As it turned out, it was not too difficult. I managed to solve the only two 7-letter clues fairly early on and (correctly) pencilled them into what seemed the most likely positions so as to avoid a word ending in J. The sorting of the clues into word lengths was very helpful but I did make a list 1 to 53 and added first letters as they arose, which made it much easier to see the constraints on the unsolved entries. As usual, there was some clever cluing, quite puzzling at first but painfully obvious when the penny dropped. For me, SPINET was the LOI – I knew this was the answer but it took me far too long to see why – I’m literally old enough to know better! I knew 13 ENOL anyway but could not find 17 GHAN in my copies of Chambers or Collins. It seemed obvious but I needed the web to confirm it.
I stared long and hard at the completed grid for inspiration. The first thing I noticed was the symmetrically placed anagrams INGS and SIGN which was no help. I had spotted DRAWING earlier on but missed its significance. Then I saw DESCEND and soon after the inverted ASCEN(D?), then at last, ASCENDING & DESCENDING which was my PDM. Having earned my crusts over the years in Maths and Science, I am a great Escher fan so the rest fell into place rapidly (I still have a t-shirt I bought nearly 40 years ago depicting the HANDS and the A&D)…. Or so I thought until I read HG’s more logical finish. I had marked the rh red cell as a D for part of the lower hand but, of course, using the D in SUEDE gives the symmetrical picture. I had stupidly assumed there had been a colouring error in the printing instead of looking for an alternative. I put an S in the lower red cell, giving FISH, a 1963 woodcut by M C E. I thought the inverted WATER was fair enough for Waterfall. So I totally missed BELEVEDERE.
A satisfying challenge with a great finish which I sadly misinterpreted. As Fred’s mate said, “You don’t get nowhere if your too ‘asty”
Thanks to Nimrod and HG
I spotted the Ascending and Descending bits but got nothing else. Pity, because I’m an Escher fan.
TonyG @1: Thanks for SPINET. A friend and I discussed TEN P for exactly the reason you give, but couldn’t account for the I & S.
And @3: I disagree with the S’s being part of the representation. I did have them in initially (with DRAWINGHAN spanning most of row 5) but on review I decided to drop them in favour of having the DRA going up diagonally right, and a 180 degree rotation of DRAWINGHAN to loop back, the D at the end of each overlapping with that at the beginning of the other.
Escher is made up of ESC in one row and HER in an entirely different column. You may as well say the puzzle is about a FAT DIP. I genuinely can’t see how anyone can have extrapolated the theme from those letters.
Sadly, spotting Ascending and Descending did not lead me to Escher, nor did a short grid squint. I can see now that the peculiar use of ‘framed’ is an art-world nudge. On the other hand, the grid-fill was a very enjoyable, proper, challenge. Thanks to Nimrod and HG.
A tough but satisfying jigsaw that seemed impossible for ages before the breakthrough finally came. It didn’t help that I only got one of the 9-letter answers until near the end. ASCENDING and DESCENDING were quite easy to spot, and having had a recent Listener on the subject, this brought Escher to mind. I had to do a trawl through lists of his other works to find the appropriate letters. It’s probably a good thing highlighting wasn’t required, given the alternative path for BELVEDERE.
But for me this was a excellent puzzle somewhat spoiled by Escher’s name appearing in two parts. The “framing” business felt like a cop-out, even if it wasn’t, and just added an extra layer of unnecessary confusion. It can’t be that hard to hide a 6-letter name in the grid, and whatever thematic reason Nimrod used to break the name up is not strong enough to justify that uncertain feeling of “is that really it, or should I carry on looking?”
Still, the jigsaw alone was worth the price of admission and it was interesting to learn more about this extraordinary artist.
HolyGhost @9: The ttle of the work in question is Drawing Hands. And the two S’s represent the wrists of the two hands (while the initial D’s represent the points of the pencils). What colour those S’s should be is another question 🙂
TonyG @13: Yes, that’s one interpretation I considered, but I felt that the two overlapping occurrences of DRAWING HAND equated to the title of the piece, coupled with its cryptic representation.
I think we weren’t instructed to highlight cells because there were sufficient ambiguities here and there, and that would only have led to a discussion probably leading nowhere.
One ambiguity that misled me, I now see, was to spot DRAGON in the grid on the left-hand side. This led me to insert a G in the grey/silver cell, but of course that meant that DRAWING HAND(S) didn’t have the D needed to identify it. I felt some indication that GHAN wasn’t in Chambers might have been helpful.
HolyGhost @14: Well, let’s hope that Nimrod chimes in with his definitive interpretation!
This was a DNF for me (was stumped by clues 2 & 46, but filled everything else in). Perversely, I really enjoyed it – the construction of the clues was so clever that each one I solved felt like a triumph!
I gambled that Sortilege and Triatomic crossed with reach other, and just started writing things in where they fitted. This approach worked surprisingly well for me.
I probably didn’t do enough grid-staring to find Descending and Drawing Hands x 2, which are really obvious now ?, so I didn’t get close to working out the theme.
Got ascending, descending, Escher, waterfall, and one drawinghand, but failed to spot the reversed drawinghand and belvedere, so just failed at the end, but specially enjoyed the jigsaw element.
I really enjoyed the grid-fill and got all the wordplays too. Jigsaws are my favourite. Sadly the end game was a bit above my pay-grade. I was a bit unsure about 10p as a “two bob”, did anyone still use the word bob after decimalization? Thanks to all.