How it started:
How it’s going:
The final grid pattern has 180-degree symmetry, but clue answers will leave three symmetrically placed blocks of cells on three rows empty.
The blocks are the same size and may be skipped by initially clued answers. Solvers must fill the empty spaces with thematic blocks of cells, adding one vertical bar within each block to ensure the symmetrical grid retains real words, phrases or names of at least four letters.
A final entry (that is, after all cells have been filled) may start in a block, and its associated clue answer will therefore start in a different cell.
Clues are in the correct order for these final entries; their answers include an abbreviation. Indications such as ‘two words’ refer to clue answers. Solutions should show bars, but not numbers.
The blogger’s worst nightmare becomes reality. Scheduled to post with a some-would-say generous week and a bit to get through everything, I found myself drawing a blank. Literally. Of the forty-odd clues I managed to solve the grand total of sixteen, with no idea where to put them in the grid.
Were clues lacking enumerations in a bar free grid with gaps a step too far? Would it have helped if I had a better grasp of symmetry? I know it helped some solvers. Perhaps I am simply not good enough at this lark.
Thankfully there are better solvers than myself on the blogging team and my SOS was duly answered by Duncan who must take the credit for the rest of the blog. The grids and the parsing are all his doing. Many thanks again. The numbers in the grid were not required, but are for information only. There is one bit of parsing neither of us I suspect are convinced by, so better suggestions welcomed.
The upshot was of course that the initially blank cells were to be filled by various prisons. Cells, you see. Pretty neat, though you will have taken a while to get to the PDM I suspect.
But how did you get on?
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| Colouring having no good point
TINE TINGE |
|
| Retrograde dance involving a bit of enthusiasm? Certainly
YEAH YE (A) H< |
|
| Elite force limiting better escapes
SCAPAS S (CAP) AS |
|
| Star split, abandoning wife finally
POLARIS POLARISE |
|
| Hot Arab country’s dismissing every instance of English religious songs
HYMNS H YEMENS |
|
| I will be enthralled by composite picture involving new French writer
MONTAIGNE MONTA (I) G (N) E |
|
| Establishing most of note is about soccer team
FIXIVE FI (XI) VER |
|
| Remarkable individual, without compare, is dismissive of Latin (two words)
A ONE ALONE |
|
| The French in trenches, short of energy
SAPLESS SAP (LES) S |
|
| Shell of European nut
EN E N |
|
| Papal appointment in Virginia
VA (vicar apostolic) VA – double definition |
|
| Try to add interest to British naval regulation Duke brought back (two words)
DRESS UP PUSSER< D |
|
| In Rome, he himself is European, retaining power
IPSE I (P) S E |
|
| Directed old King to occupy place
STEARD STEA (R) D |
|
| Vessel goes off, carrying soldiers with it (two words)
ROTOR SHIP ROT (OR) S HIP |
|
| Shadow, black, encountered during pilgrimage
UMBRA UM (B) RA |
|
| Shellfish in most of singular river, not lake
QUEENIE QUEER NILE |
|
| Promising White will encircle King before end of game
LIKELY LI (K E) LY |
|
| To criticise Government is a pain
PANG PAN G |
|
| Flimsy material recalled Webster’s approach to travelling?
LENO ONE L (Webster’s dictionary will spell traveling with one L) |
|
| Down | |
| Was an example of pity if moved over the impoverished, ultimately
TYPIFIED TYPIFI* E D |
|
| Dawn’s pervaded by start of light current from the wind
EOLIAN EO (L I) AN |
|
| Petal (or sepal) actually encompasses it
ALA ALA (hidden word) |
|
| Tesla rambles, offering valuable lots of stuff
TROVES T ROVES |
|
| Bridge opponents claiming one victory
WIN W (I) N |
|
| Do plan to waste time
CHAR CHART |
|
| Character from Old Testament that’s always popular
AYIN AY IN |
|
| Old relatives adopting new name in Irish town
NANNAS NA (N N) AS |
|
| Fabled monster I released turning up in German city
ESSEN NESSIE< |
|
| A munition almost doing for old dictator
AMIN A MINE |
|
| Ambush? Split up
TRAP PART< |
|
| More than one man aspires to dodge work
HES (plural of man)
HOPES (aspires) to dodge OP (work) |
|
| Poet’s completed verse without depth and rhyme initially
O’ER
ODE(verse) without D (depth) +R (Rhyme initially) |
|
| Dodgy behaviour involving Democrat’s beer in Texas
SUDS SU (D) S |
|
| More meaningful to overlook hospital, one regrets
PITIER PITHIER |
|
| Polish one’s self-image in US city (two words)
SAN DIEGO SAND I EGO |
|
| Brazilian guy with energy and more energy
PEPE PEP E |
|
| Function or form, nothing less
VERSIN VERSION |
|
| American lodger to overlook endlessly tucking into eggs
ROOMIE RO (OMIT) E |
|
| Drab Church Council’s dismissing article
TRULL TRULLAN |
|
| Additional stump
MORE MORE (double definition) |
|
| Mountain sheep spurning one mountain range
URAL URIAL |
|
| Pack of hounds more than enough for this attacker
HUN
HUNt |
|
| What people have said when finally welcomed by booze advisers?
ANA – anecdotes A (N) A |
O’ER – how about ODE+R[hyme]
HUN – HUNT is a pack of dogs. Too long, maybe??
The crossword puzzle is a tussle in which the solver is meant to win in the end. This setter (and our esteemed editor) might wish to remember that.
For an unusual reason this was a very satisfying crossword to solve. I have never before got further than halfway with an Inquisitor whose clues lack enumerations, but with this one I exceeded expectations and managed to solve all the clues. It took quite a long time, but I was never stuck, and the handicap of having no word-lengths was much diminished when the 180-degree symmetry could be factored in. I ended up (as intended) with three identical blocks of eight empty cells in the top, middle and bottom rows.
The endgame, though, was all too short. The only reference to a theme was the phrase ‘thematic blocks of cells’, but I was not clever or lucky enough at the time to guess what the setter had in mind. On returning to the puzzle a few days later I tried to come up with a valid set of six words that would go symmetrically into those three blocks, but the only success I had with that endeavour was to draw the correct grid with the bars in the right places (a guess). Oh, and I also had MOOR.
I would never have got the theme, but early on, from the appearance of the grid with its three empty ‘blocks of cells’, an image of the Bibby Stockholm came to mind!
Sorry, Jon, that you had such an unfortunate experience with this one. Thanks anyway, and to Duncan for most the blog.
(This was for me one of only two themeless puzzles this year so far, the other being Phi’s previous puzzle, no. 1809.)
HES
HOPES (aspires) to dodge OP (work)
O’ER
ODE(verse) without D (depth) +R (Rhyme initially). Kenmac said the same thing.
HUN
Agree with Kenmac’s parsing (HUNt more than enough).
Didn’t cold-solve enough clues initially, so never made a start on it (with these, you really do need some friendly ones in the top left… But I did catch up with some other chores.
Dreadful puzzle, absolutely awful. Four hours, four clues, rubric not much help. Abandoned. Went to bed with Covid.
A hard challenge but I thought it was worth it. Managed to get a start in the top lefthand corner but it took me many abortive attempts to get more than an inkling of how to proceed. But since I was trying to ignore my house guest for the weekend, this suited me perfectly. The preamble was extremely cryptic and given the number of unfamiliar devices I would have appreciated a bit more clarity here. And the double meaning of “thematic blocks of cells” escaped me until well after I’d finished.
It was a tussle but well worth it so thanks Phi for the challenge.
We solved the first across clue and then guessed where some of the down clues started. We quickly realised that the second one across had to go on the second line which meant a block of empty cells on the first row. We toyed with TI lots of spaces and then NE but that didn’t work. We fortunately saw the possibility of AEOLIAN and EOLIAN which helped us on our way.
After everything was filled in we looked at possible words to fit in the empty cells and when Bert thought of DART and MOOR, the rest fell into place.
Sorry about the Covid HolyGhost, we are sure that was the reason you didn’t make any headway – we were glad of two heads for this puzzle, certainly not one that wasn’t working smoothly.
Thanks to Duncan and Jon_S.
Hardest Inquisitor of the year? Or ever? I did manage to solve it in the end with the help of a friend, by punting in TYPEFIED TALC and YEAH followed by the symmetrical SANDIEGO. (Similar to Bertandjoyce, it sounds). Given there were 3 rows with empty cells, one of them had to be in the middle row and the other one ‘felt like it should be’ at the top – hence also the bottom – row, and I slowly made my way from there. I did like the Prison theme / double entendres.
My big question is – why set this particular puzzle as a Carte Blanche AND without enumerations, making it super-extra-hard? I thought it would have made a fine puzzle in the standard way, with bars, enumerations and empty blocks of cells to be completed thematically + perhaps a ‘removal of letters before solving’ device to add a bit – but not too much – spice.
I get that there should be varying levels of difficulty but this just felt a little OTT.
Quite a few clues solved here, but I’m afraid the grid remained obstinately blank. Parts of our house were being noisily rebuilt (after a “routine” spot of renovation uncovered structural flaws) and jangled nerves made it too hard to concentrate. Well, that’s my excuse, though I might well have flubbed in any case.
Commiserations, HG (@6), and best wishes for a speedy recovery. (And the puzzle was OTT by most accounts!)
There is a setter’s blog but it’s currently in abeyance due to a DDOS attack on my hosting service (which also means my website is down).
More there, of course, but it seemed to me that putting the bars in would have made it (to paraphrase) super-extra-easy. And giving enumerations for a Carte Blanche – well, if it’s symmetric, you might as well put the bars in. As it happens, the anticipated way in (TYPIFIED, YEAH etc) does seem to have been the one used by those who got there.
I do like to keep you on your toes by releasing one that’s on the hard side.
Thanks all for the parsings. I’ve updated the blog accordingly.
Ah well. I honestly thought I’d solved this but I got the final unclued words wrong and so was left wondering what Phi was on about in the “thematic cells” bit of the rubric. My words had nothing to do with each other but they did fit the grid and make real crossing words. I remember I had “St Leo” in the bottom right corner. Some of the others were even more obscure. Given that I had “moor” and had wondered about prisons when I first read the rubric you’d think I’d have twigged, but I settled for a theme of no theme at all. Obviously I was kidding myself. I was pretty tired by then…
But for the first time I might actually vote for a puzzle I couldn’t solve at the end of the year. It clearly was solvable, judging by the other comments here, just a bit beyond me. And it was very satisfying getting as far as I did. I’d like to think I’ll be given a chance to take on something similar in a future Inquisitor, and maybe actually get over the line.
I welcomed the challenge but found it too much of a slog to be enjoyable (then again, had it been delivered in the conventional way I’d probably have found it too easy, as Phi suggests). Personally, I’d have liked something between the two extremes.
Giving enumerations, with the usual caveat about ‘the space available’, would have given solvers a better chance of completing the initial stage without making the process easy (there are still major gaps to navigate, and that adds an extra degree of difficulty to a carte blanche grid as it is).
Of course, the three blank areas are not dealt with in a consistent way – the central area is flanked by two 2 letter answers, the top and bottom enclosed by a single answer each time – so these would have to be numbered differently (6, 6 and 12, 12). A slight rewrite for the extra bars requirement would be necessary too.
A final quibble – could the preamble have given us a reference for the plural form ‘lensings’? I struggled to find anything convincing online.
Thanks to Phi, Jon_S and Duncan – I think this one has been hard on everyone.
Don’t listen to these losers, Phi! I found this puzzle a joy from start to finish. Better too hard than too easy — it makes me think I’m getting my money’s worth.
Phi@12 you did a delightful puzzle where the nina connected Jimmy Webb with WH Auden
And then this
Well I did twig TYPIFIED and SAN DIEGO and a few more-my colleague in Melbourne (a much better solver than me on Inqys) got a few more ..but…..
Cunning wheeze though and thanks to Duncan and all who came to the party
I don’t believe I’m “a loser”, as TonyG @16 puts it, and frankly I find that insulting.
Tony G – would you care to retract that rather ill-advised comment?
I thought it was clearly meant in jest – but then I’m a “winner” this week so perhaps not objective ?
I got into thison day 2 with YEAH which fitted with TYPIFIED in the NW corner. This indicated that EOLIAN and ALA were probably going to start in the second row thus indicating some spaces in the top row. With symmetry that meant that there would be spaces in the middle row and the bottom rows as well. I also had SCAPAS and HYMNS early on which helped position NANNAS and ESSEN in the NE corner. The Y in HYMNS did cause me a bit of a problem on day 1 as I had TYPIFIED but not YEAH at that point and was trying to work out how TYPIFIED and HYMNS intersected. Finally solving TINE in the top row constrained the spaces to 8 cells in each of the three rows. That also helped position EN and VA in the middle row. The rest of the grid built up from there with the help of symmetry.
Playing about with possible new down entries as real words led me to build SI_GS___ in thespaces in the bottom row. Then I thought of the prison SING SING and the phrase ‘thematic blocks of cells’ suddenly made sense. A bit more playing about with possible letters in the spaces generated ALCATRAZ and DARTMOOR to complete the puzzle.
It was difficult to get a start with al the cold solving but it all fitted together satisfactorily in the end. I have taken longer to solve other Inquisitors but I agree that this was at the tricky end of the spectrum.
Oops, got the italics formatting wrong above, but it’s not detracting from the meaning. I can edit my own comments on my own blogs bit it looks like I can’t edit my own comments on someone else’s blog.
Yes, a comment editing function would be helpful to correct embarrassing typos such as TYPEFIED.
HolyGhost @6: you wrote “Dreadful puzzle, absolutely awful.” If you are bothered by the insults flying around, it was you that started it!
Web access restored: so the setter’s blog is at: http://phionline.net.nz/setters-blogs/filling-cells/
Magnus Magnusson always used to say to Mastermind contestants: “It’s only a bloody game” (I have the T-shirt). Might be worth remembering.
@24: I’m not sure how one insults a puzzle, but there you go.
@25: I don’t think Magnus Magnusson is relevant here; I have a T-shirt with a well-known quote from Bill Shankly – also not relevant.
I think the Shankly T-shirt is a much better fit for crosswords, but setters do seem to prefer the other one. Why worry about the frustrations, the troublesome details and the questionable decisions if it’s ‘only a game’? (Why? Perhaps it’s because we routinely spend an inordinate amount of time and energy doing them.)
I’m surprised to read that Phi’s puzzle was designed from the outset to be the way it is – I’d thought it likely that an earlier idea had been toughened up. Also surprised to read again that symmetry in a carte blanche does away with the need for enumerations – don’t we need them as an aid to solving the clues as well?
HolyGhost @26: didn’t it occur to you that insulting a puzzle in such obnoxious terms is also insulting the setter? I am lost for words.
I’m also curious about Phi’s belief that, in a carte blanche, providing enumerations is equivalent to putting in bars. Because there must be a substantial section of the community, even the crossword-solving community, for whom this is not true. Starting with me. Anyway, I should also add that Phi has in the past created challenges that I have really enjoyed (and many evidently took to this one).
Neil Hunter @28 I think you’re right that bars would give more away than enumerations (because they would implicitly give you the enumerations, while the reverse is not true). Phi was exaggerating, I think, but it’s also true that enumerations would take you a long way towards finding the grid layout. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Carte Blanche with enumerations. The difference here of course is the unclued entries, but reading comments from successful solvers it looks to me like Phi did call this right: it’s hard because of those gaps, but rubric/thematic element seems to have balanced it out enough. Just not quite enough for me…
@29 not 28. Sorry.
One of the hardest Inquisitor puzzles ever in my humble. Must have taken me the best part of a week on and off. But I managed to get there and felt very satisfied to do so. I must have cold solved about 75% before I braved the grid fill and was surprised how quickly it came together once I’d cracked the North West corner.
I don’t mind a brain stinger now and then – to keep us on our toes as Phi says. But maybe just one a year as tough as this please …
Thanks to bloggers and setter as ever. I couldn’t parse nannas or queenie so good to clear those up.
As others have said, the lack of bars, and word lengths, together with an impenetrable preamble made this a very frustrating experience for me. Given the absence of such assistance, I thought the clues would have to be relatively friendly, but I could not have been more wrong.
After working my way through the clues several times, I managed to cold solve 12, triumphantly wrote in Typified and Tine (incorrectly, I now see) and put it aside.
Definitely the hardest IQ I’ve done. Dipped in and out for about 5 days and eventually managed to finish. The mix of particularly esoteric cluing, and no bars/enumerations made for a real mind-melter of a puzzle. Bit underwhelmed by the endgame, but I suppose after an epic solve that’s maybe inevitable. No complaints, though – the whole point of doing these is for a challenge. Certainly stretched my humble skills to the maximum.
This was hard. I really enjoyed the challenge. I made steady progress. In the end I had every answer, and almost everything placed correctly. I failed at the final hurdle, not when considering that the down clues could (also) skip empty cells, so I didn’t have 8 empty cells in the middle row.
I am so disappointed in myself: if I’d fixed that, I definitely would have have rated this my favourite puzzle of the year so far. OK, co-favourite.
Which makes me think. Is it fair for me to downgrade my estimation of the puzzle just because I made a mistake? Seems unfair to the puzzle.
So annoyed with myself: so close!