Since the weekend puzzle changed its name to Inquisitor in 2007, Ifor has now appeared solo 49 times. We look forward to his reaching his half-century.
Preamble: Four perimeter answers must each have a letter-string reordered to form the non-word entry. These strings identify characters confined within the grid, only one of whom is free to go; solvers must facilitate this, leaving vacant cells. All clues to 6/7/8/9/10-letter entries contain a letter to be removed before solving; in clue order these letters suggest a further change to be made to the grid. These grid and clue changes create new words.
It seemed pretty much odds-on that the four perimeter answers needing treatment would be the long ones, and so it proved: clearly 2a LIGATURE would not work with 2d ROTAL; soon enough MASSACRING produced another clash. Solving was going along OK though, with something like one across clue per row yielding first time through, but not quite so many of the downs.
This wasn’t helping very much with making sense of the letters removed from the 19 clues though – too many gaps. My breakthrough came when I cracked 12a “Da[n]te’s stone, as left in bag”, the N giving me L’ENFER …; with the mention of Dante I not unnaturally thought immediately of the Inferno, but that was soon corrected when I saw that the remaining letters spelt C’EST LES AUTRES. The source of this phrase is Huis Clos (often translated as No Exit), a play by Jean-Paul Sartre.
A visit to the internet bore much fruit: the main characters in the play are GARCIN, SERRANO, and RIGAULT, with a minor role for a VALET. Without this being a spoiler (I hope), the VALET is the only one who is free to leave.
The rest of the grid was quite quickly filled and all that remained was to effect the change suggested by the phrase generated by the letters removed from the clues, translated as “Hell is other people”. So we replace NETHERWORLD in the central column by OTHER PEOPLE and we’re done.
Thanks Ifor, I really enjoyed this one, and I thought it was a really good puzzle – not too easy, but not too hard either; solvers put in the effort and get their reward, and appreciate the effort put in by the setter for our entertainment.
Almost as an afterthought, of course the title points to an anagram of Arrest, ie Sartre. Existential angst, anyone?
| No. | C[l]ue | X | Answer | Wordplay |
| Across | ||||
| 2 | Ti[l]e Gaultier designed (8) | L | LIGATURE | [GAULTIER]* |
| 7 | Harshly criticise Trump? (4) | SLAM | double definition | |
| 11 | M[e]an trick, squashing Scott’s stovepipe hat (6) | E | COLUMN | CON (trick) around LUM (chimney-pot hat, Scot) |
| 12 | Da[n]te’s stone, as left in bag (6) | N | NUTLET | UT (as) L(eft) in NET (bag) |
| 13 | Anything very small in cash machine holding zilch (4) | ATOM | ATM (cash machine) around O (zilch) | |
| 14 | Mother and son represented mixed type and other people cut short (5) | PIETÀ | PI (mixed type) ET A(l) (and other people) | |
| 15 | Crazy attempt repulsed (4) | BATS | STAB< (attempt) | |
| 16 | Files crash without covering added comment (5) | RASPS | (c)RAS(h) PS (comment) | |
| 19 | Singles sometimes spoken of as achieved by Stokes (4) | ONES | homophone WON (achieved) S(tokes) | |
| 20 | Beardless goats confused the Royal Society (5) | TEHRS | [THE]* RS (Royal Society) | |
| 22 | [F]alters at first, vacuuming house in the spring (6) | F | VARIES | V(acuuming) ARIES (house in the spring, first sign of the zodiac) |
| 23 | Hairs on bee’s leg catch inside while spinning (5) | SCOPA | COP (catch) in AS< (while) | |
| 25 | Sprints cr[e]ate fools, stupidly ignoring limit at the start (9) | E | FOOT-RACES | [CRATE FOOLS]* ¬ L(imit) |
| 27 | Warning before painting on wall’s reversed (5) | LARUM | MURAL< (painting on wall) | |
| 29 | Damaged chairlift dropping far, [r]evolving like a stone (6) | R | LITHIC | [CHAIRLIFT ¬ FAR]* |
| 30 | Lizard wandering alone (5) | ANOLE | [ALONE]* | |
| 32 | Gin bit back (4) | TRAP | PART< (bit) | |
| 33 | Toxic protein acting first in brain (5) | ABRIN | BRAIN with A(cting) moved to the beginning | |
| 34 | One with no number, not a jot (4) | IOTA | I (one) NOT ¬ N(umber) A | |
| 35 | A little drunk casually rolled up after a late start (5) | OILED | (c)OILED (rolled up) | |
| 37 | Release found on trousers (4) | UNDO | (fo)UND O(n) | |
| 39 | Sta[c]ked hand critically, with large number left in end (6) | C | PAWNED | PAW (hand, derog) END with N (large number) moved left |
| 40 | Car[e] for the wealthy part runs across line (6) | E | ROLLER | ROLE (part) R(uns) around L(ine) |
| 41 | Home is not in France (4) | NEST | N’EST (is not, Fr) | |
| 42 | Those who complain gross reason[s] flourished (8) | S | GROANERS | GR(oss) [REASON]* |
| Down | ||||
| 1 | Company returning absolute growth in Chile (3) | OCA | CO(ompany)< A(bsolute) | |
| 2 | Migrant patrols avoiding borders as a routine (5) | ROTAL | [(p)ATROL(s)]* | |
| 3 | Shrewd face over debts, s[t]ealing part (9) | T | GUMPTIOUS | MUG< (face) IOUS (debts) around P(ar)T |
| 4 | Mancunian embracing City, maybe (3) | UNI | (Manc)UNI(an) | |
| 5 | Piecework or [l]one supporter by way of private lesson (10) | L | TUTORIALLY | TUT (piecework) OR I (one) ALLY (supporter) |
| 6 | Ranks could be seen wheeling in ceremonial dignity (5) | ÉTATS | STATE (ceremonial dignity) | |
| 8 | Slim[e] on skin of torso shed (6) | E | LEAN-TO | LEAN (slim) T(ors)O |
| 9 | Shy at Te[s]t, concealing member (7) | S | ATTEMPT | AT TET around MP (member) |
| 10 | Butchering mostly g[a]ins sarcasm when mishandled (10) | A | MASSACRING | [GINS SARCASM]* |
| 12 | Extremes of laughter down there? Unlikely (11) | NETHERWORLD | [L(aughte)R DOWN THERE]* & cryptic defn | |
| 16 | Purs[u]ing a prize given up and changed into final book (10) | U | REVELATION | A LEVER (prize) both< [INTO]* |
| 17 | Browse online on counter frustrates, wasting time and values (4) | SURF | FRUSTRATES ¬ T(ime) ¬ RATES (values) rev. | |
| 18 | Islands witness [t]ide on the turn (10, 2 words) | T | WEST INDIES | [WITNESS IDE]* |
| 21 | [R]ace exclusion plan exposed suckers for spineless creatures (9) | R | ACETABULA | ACE TABU (exclusion) (p)LA(n) |
| 24 | Mar[e] struggling with open railing (7) | E | MANROPE | [MAR OPEN]* |
| 26 | Gathering of red wine grape out of South Africa sent north (4) | SHIR | SHIRAZ (red wine grape) ¬ ZA< (South Africa) | |
| 28 | Ropes around neck perhaps pressed old man’s breath[s] upwards (6) | S | RIATAS | SAT (pressed) AIR (breath, obs) all< |
| 30 | A crowd of locals buried here and there (5) | AMONG | A MONG (crowd, dialext) | |
| 31 | Recording of game that’s lost after fool turned up (5) | VIDEO | EO (game, mid-18c) after DIV< (fool) | |
| 36 | Blunder over railway lines (3) | ERR | (ov)ER R(ailway) | |
| 38 | The Globe forbore to give up its collecting in the front (3) | ORB | FORBORE ¬ FORE (in the front) | |
This is the second time in recent living memory that I have completed a crossword by Ifor but then been left clueless as to the thematic dénouement. Fortunately, on each such occasion, returning to the puzzle on another day, I managed to crack the theme and complete the puzzle.
I agree with HG’s sentiments on the quality of this puzzle. The changes to NETHERWORLD were particularly neat, and to incorporate all the thematic material in a symmetrical grid was some feat. I happened to guess correctly the three changes to make Serrano, Rigault and Garcin (the first of these being already a recognisable name), and when I found them via the quote from Sartre’s ‘No Exit’ I found the Valet too.
Thanks to Ifor and HolyGhost.
Yes, a very fair and agreeable puzzle, with just enough material provided from the clues to work out the searches needed to reach the Huis Clos characters and the quote. But I am mirroring Alan B’s experiences this week, in staring forlornly at a completed Eclogue grid without the faintest idea what to do next. With luck, as for him, inspiration will dawn some time. Meanwhile thanks to Ifor and Holy Ghost, including for the Sartre anagram which of course I missed.
{Spoiler of #1877 deleted – HG}
Sagittarius @2: probably best not to have even a vague reference to a live puzzle. I don’t want to know in advance if others have found it easy or difficult.
thom @3: your comment doesn’t seem to apply to Ifor’s puzzle. If it’s a response to the comment @2 on #1877 – which I haven’t yet looked at – then you might just have spoilt it for me (and others).
I agree with HG that the balance of difficulty on this one was just right. I think I would have got there a little earlier if I hadn’t felt that a column was ‘men’ rather than ‘man’; ‘Lanfer’ took me nowhere. It was via guessing, and then researching, the three surnames that I got to Huis Clos.
Many thanks to Ifor and HolyGhost.
Apologies to all if I have contravened the site etiquette here; the thought came straight into my head after reading Alan B’s comment.
I thought this was a super IQ. Ifor introduced me to something new, which is one of the many pleasures of barred thematics. Once I turned off my English mode and spotted enfer, I was away. Loved the endgame, very clever. Bravo Ifor and thanks yet again to HolyGhost for the blog – as well as revealing the title’s significance. I totally missed that along with Sagittarius
My thanks to HG for his usual comprehensive and accurate blog, and to those who commented here and elsewhere. It’s good to know that others share my philosophy; HG’s thoughts on how a puzzle should involve demonstrable effort on the part of both setter and solvers, Alan’s willingness to persist to gain due reward, and Phil’s point about the pleasure of being introduced to something new. I do hope to achieve a half-century in due course!
Very enjoyable puzzle. Seeing Garcin was the key, although I was initially wandering where Inez and Estelle had gone until I remembered that they had surnames. Thanks to Ifor for leading me back to this classic of existentialism. Wrongful arrest – brilliant!