Inquisitor 1853: From A to B (and Back Again) by Kruger

12 comments on “Inquisitor 1853: From A to B (and Back Again) by Kruger”

1. For CRUNCH I had CG (Commanding General) to start, then RUN (become, marked archaic in Chambers under the vi meanings rather than vt for some reason), then CH (Chief abbr). G as you say, is the extra letter.

2. In this puzzle I liked most of all the whole thematic design, leading us to ABBA and thence to song titles as clues for the unclued entries. Those solved from Waterloo, Honey Honey, Money Money Money and The Winner Takes It All were real treats. I first thought UORS had to be UORI (‘you or I’ meaning One Of Us), giving the wrong answer NOISES for NOSIES, but it had to be the latter even though a nosy is one to pry rather then spy.

   It’s unusual for a puzzle to have a dual solution to a clue, and even more unusual to have four. Two instances were clue answers (ENURED/INURED and SECKEL/SECKLE), both of which were resolved by crossing unclued entries, and two were extra letters (O or E from DOURO/DUERO in ENDURO and H or P from HEN/PEN in ENMESH), both of which were resolved by completing the message correctly.

   This was nevertheless a very well constructed and well clued puzzle, which took me longer then usual to complete. I enjoyed every minute.

   Thanks to Kruger and duncanshiell.

3. Good fun and took a while to solve all the cryptic songs, but got there eventually (although I couldn’t parse UORS despite the song being obvious). The only minor quibble being the word “water” coming up twice in HHOWC – WC alone or eg HHOCAN might have been neater.

   It was unusual not to mention the 4 missing letters anywhere in the preamble but I guess the clues involved were mostly obvious enough that something had to be afoot – although I did think there was an error in the grid initially.

   Thanks for a great challenge!

4. Alas! Having convinced myself that 35A had to be an anagram of ogres, thereby getting ORES, and that 5D would be Ensued (shouldn’t there be some indication that Inure in the sense of come into effect is obsolete?), I was left unable to make any sense of the instructions beyond doing something or other with the empty cells, and ground to an ignominious halt. In retrospect the ABBA device is clearly signalled in the title, and might have unlocked things, but it didn’t…..Thanks to Alan B for parsing Crunch, and to Kruger and Duncan.

5. A mystifying title until I found the top three empty cells and realised that ABB were the obvious letters to fill them and then everything became clear – a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the second Battle of Waterloo! Like Duncan, I found anticipating the message helped me solve some of the harder clues. I thought the shaded entries were a creative mix of ideas and, as Duncan said, good fun. It took me quite a while to crack them all. I struggled with the bottom entry as I had entered the alternative spelling of of SECKEL in 26D and so had -HEEO- instead of -HELO- to deal with. Last in was the winning song after I found the last letter of HHOW- by elimination. As one with a distant background in Chemistry, I am ashamed of myself for not spotting it first!
   Thanks to Kruger for an entertaining puzzle and to Duncan for the thorough analysis.

6. No one of my finest hours, alas. Thanks all the same to Kruger and Duncan. Everything seemed to be coming along nicely when I saw where ABBA would fit in (as confirmed by the title) and the extra-letters message emerged. But after getting HHOWC and QNUEE — the only relevant song titles I knew — and finding one that could be represented by CLUEDO, I bogged down in the long Wikipedia list of songs and somehow lost interest. Must try harder.

7. Another endgame fail here. Abba went in but I was totally unable to get anywhere with the cryptic songs, even after a kind soul told me about Dancing Queen. Not sure I’m keen on answers being non-words, no matter how clever it all may be.

8. I sympathise with DL@6. I feel that with the endgames of IQs it is often a case of “horses for courses”. It took me quite a while to sort out the shaded entries but, because I enjoyed ABBA’s songs, I was happy to proceed to the bitter end. However, if the theme turns out to be something that does not interest me greatly and the end-game starts to look like it needs extensive research I find that I can’t be fussed (to put it politely) and am satisfied that I have solved the rest of the grid.

9. I really enjoyed the differing challenges of the endgame, and was tormented by the two I failed to see (One of Us and Honey Honey, which of course now looks obvious). A tricky Inquisitor, I felt, but a very helpful title helped fill the gaps, which (see Arnold@3) were at the very least implicitly promised in the preamble (Numerations refer to the space available for entries). Thanks to Kruger and Duncan.

10. I agree with Neil Hunter’s response @9 to arnold’s quibble @3 about the preamble: as soon as I read “numerations … refer …” I was on the lookout for mismatches between lengths of answers & entries.
    And Sagittarius @4: I can’t see any indication in Chambers that INURE in the sense of “come into effect” is obsolete.
    I was another who couldn’t parse UORS and slotted in the U only by elimination.
    Thanks go to Duncan & Kruger – but for me not as enjoyable as others seem to have found it.

11. HG@10: you are of course quite right. Apologies. The obsolete reference was to the Shakespearean and Miltonic “enure”. Having never previously met “inure” with the come-into-effect meaning, I was obviously trying to excuse myself by deciding it didn’t properly exist!

12. Magnificent. Big smile on my face when ABBA became apparent (I’m a bit of a fan) and had great fun deciphering the cryptic song titles.

    Thanks Kruger and Duncan!

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