The fifteensquared website shows that this is Ifor’s 53rd Inquisitor puzzle since he first appeared in February 2011. Ifor varies his themes, which are often associated with lesser known subjects, so there is always a chance to learn new facts.
We had a fairly lengthy preamble this week that told us: All 14 clues to 7- and 9-letter entries must have a letter replaced before solving. Read in clue order, removed letters
identify items lost according to line one of a humorous quatrain; new letters similarly identify one of two replacements named in line four. The other replacement (7,4) must be written under the grid. Nine letters in the originally-filled grid must be changed, thus replacing what leaves according to line two with what remains according to line three. Three otherwise normal clues each contain two extra words; those of six letters can
each rearrange to form two of the six unclued 3-letter entries. The others share a synonym, a homophone of the writer’s surname.
In summary, there were six tasks:
- Solve the puzzle;
- Identify missing items referenced in lines 1 and one of the new items referenced in line 4 of an unknown quatrain by an unknown author;
- Write the other new item referenced in line 4 under the grid;
- Change 9 letters somewhere in the grid to replace something leaving in line 2 of the quatrain with something leaving in line 3;
- Find two redundant words in each three clues. Each pair of words includes a 6-letter one that must be anagrammed into two 3-letter words to be fitted in one of the six unclued 3-letter lights;
- Find a shared synonym of the three remaining redundant words and identify the quatrain’s author as a homophone of the synonym.
Well, I suppose that all seems clear enough!
As usual, I just started to solve the clues and hoped that the preamble would make a bit more sense as the omitted / replaced letters in the clues became more obvious.
I thought the clues were very good with just a few that offered a quickish entry into the grid. I got a foothold with KIDDED, RONES, OIKS, SNAFU and HOLLA in the acrosses, plus KORE, FLEADH, SLEEVE and HOUSEMATE in the downs.
I didn’t always identify both the excluded letter and its replacement immediately, but I usually got at least one in each of the 7- and 9-letter entries. The first item to fall was the replacement from the 14 clues when I had enough to think that BLANCMANGE, possibly COLD BLANCMANGE was going to fit. I had something like TUMULT in the letters for the excluded items. Fortunately, entering TUMULT BLANCMANGE into Google threw up a reference to a poem by Ronald KNOX [1888 – 1957]. A bit more searching revealed the full poem quatrain as:
The TUMULT and the SHOUTING dies,
The CAPTAINS and KINGS depart,
And we are left with LARGE SUPPLIES
Of COLD BLANCMANGE and RHUBARB TART.
The full text helped clarify some of the excluded and replacement letters that had so far eluded me.
The fourteen omitted letters spelled TUMULT SHOUTING. The fourteen replacement letters spelled COLD BLANCMANGE.
The six redundant words fell at different times. i got NOODLE and CRITICISMS in 37 across fairly early on when I already had enough letters in the 3-letter entries to consider NOODLE delivering ELO and DON. The next pair to fall were DENIES and TAPS in 20 across. DENIES gave us ENS and IDE as 3-letter words. Finally, I got CHITIN and REVERSES in 34 down to derive NIT and CHI.
The so far unused redundant words were CRITICISMS, TAPS and REVERSES which are all synonyms of KNOCKS which is a homophone of KNOX, the author of the quatrain.
KNOX seems to have had an interesting life. He was clearly a very talented individual who devoted his life to Church while maintaining an interest in other studies. He wrote a number of mystery and detective novels. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he started his career as a Church of England priest in 1912 but converted to Catholicism in 1917. He became a Roman Catholic priest in 1918 and followed that faith until his death in 1957.
With the grid filled as shown immediately below.
When I read the preamble initially, I thought we would be looking for a string of 9 consecutive letters to change to fulfil task 4 in the list above, but having by now found the full quatrain, I could identify KINGS CAPTAINS in the major NW-SE diagonal. These two groups were mentioned as leaving in line 2 of the quatrain.
I noted that LARGE SUPPLIES was also 13-letters. Writing that in place of KINGS CAPTAINS in the same diagonal generated valid words using all the new letters.
KIDDED to LIDDED and KORE to LORE
IONIAN to AONIAN
RONES to RORES and DON to DOR
SQUALLING to EQUALLING
CLASH to SLASH
SLAES to SLUES
DOLLY SHOT to DOLLY SHOP
AUNE to LUNE
LICHEN to LICHEE
The two phrases share common letters at positions 4 (G), 8(P), 11(I) and 13(S), so only 9 letters in the grid are changing.
Finally we have to write RHUBARB TART under the grid.
After all the changes and the addition of the RHUBARB TART, the final grid looks like this.
I said earlier on that I thought the clues were very good. I did though struggle with the parsing of IONIAN. I have given a suggestion in the detailed table below, but I wouldn’t be surprised if other solvers say that I have got it wrong.
I was also held up a bit at 23 down when I changed the first letter of ‘general’ to r to get an anagram of LEARNER (one acquiring information).
The quatrain could refer to the aftermath of a party where all that remains after the fun (TUMULT and SHOUTING) and everyone’s departure are COLD BLANCMANGE and RHUBARB TART, hence the title of the puzzle ‘The Party’s Over’ I haven’t found an online reference to the actual party, so the poem may just be a general observation that when the fun is over, life returns to a routine humdrum life.
The detailed table below shows all the original clues, the amended clues, the excluded and replacement letters, plus the redundant words. The 3-letter entries derived from NOODLE are shown with a yellow background, the ones derived from DENIES have a green background and the two from CHITIN have a cyan background. Note that after the change from KING CAPTAINS to LARGE SUPPLIES one of the words derived from NOODLE has been changed from DON to DOR.
Thanks to Ifor for an entertaining puzzle with some fun discoveries along the way.
| No | Detail | |
| Across | Out In | |
| 1 |
Milk finally disposed of (run off) produced a little butter (6) KIDDED (descriptive of a female goat who has just given birth to a kid) K (last letter of [finally] milK) + rIDDED (disposed of) excluding (off) R (run) K IDDED |
|
| 4 |
North Sea swimmer’s cold, loth to leave counter (7) North Sea swimmer’s cold, loch to leave counter (7) CODFISH (a fish found in the North Sea; northern swimmer) COlD excluding (to leave) L (loch) + FISH (some food stores gave a fish counter) COD FISH |
T C |
| 11 |
Duke of York’s content over squashing offence (6) ORSINO (reference Duke ORSINO, a fictional character in Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night) (OR [central letters of {content} yORk] + O [over]) containing (squashing) SIN (an offence) OR (SIN) O |
|
| 12 |
Drunken snore in Glaswegian gutters (5) RONES (Scottish [Glaswegian] word for gutters) Anagram of (drunken) SNORE RONES* |
|
| 13 |
Pass glee, going to put in prison for some (7) Pass glee, going to pot in prison for some (7) COLLEGE (slang word [word used by some] for a prison) COL (pass in a mountain range) + an anagram of (going out) GLEE COL LEGE* |
U O |
| 15 |
Go easy twisting around mat in exercise system (9) Go easy twisting around lat in exercise system (9) YOGALATES (an exercise system that combines elements of Yoga and Pilates) Anagram of (twisting) GO EASY containing (around) LAT YOGA (LAT) ES* |
M L |
| 16 |
Sanctions restricting international louts (4) OIKS (louts) OKS (okays; permits; sanctions) containing (restricting) I (international) O (I) KS |
|
| 18 |
Parachute slack minus sides of dirty backing (7) Parachute slack minds sides of dirty backing (7) SKYDIVE (to perform manoeuvres wearing a parachute) SKIVE (evade, be slack) containing (mids) DY (outer letters of [sides of] DirtY) reversed (backing) SK (YD<) IVE |
U D |
| 19 |
Grill outside without taking seconds to obtain equipment (5) BAR-B-Q (grill outside) BAR (excluding; without) + BQ (second letters of [seconds to] each of oBtain and eQuipment) BAR B Q |
|
| 20 |
Conservative whip denies taps in noisy opposition (5) Conservative whip in noisy opposition (5) CLASH (noisy opposition) C (Conservative) + LASH (whip) C LASH |
denies taps |
| 22 |
Chaos in the Capitol Building as above keeping supporter back (5) SNAFU (American [Capitol Building is in Washington DC] term for chaos) (US [Latin ut supra; as above] containing (keeping)] FAN [supporter]) all reversed (back) (S (NAF< U)< |
|
| 24 |
Loud cry – hearts jar (5) HOLLA (a loud cry) H (hearts) + OLLA (jar or urn) H OLLA |
|
| 27 |
Tubers regularly post lies at random (5) SALEP (dried orchid tubers) Anagram of (at random) PSLEA (letters 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 [regularly] of PoSt LiEs At) SALEP* |
|
| 28 |
Caesar’s died – it’s following witchcraft (5) OBIIT (Latin [Caesar] word for ‘died’) OBI (witchcraft) + IT OBI IT |
|
| 29 |
Takes stock of results lodged (7) Takes stock of results bodged (7) RUSTLES (steals [takes] cattle [stock]) Anagram of (bodged) RESULTS RUSTLES* |
L B |
| 31 |
Stock cars in competition, say (4) RACE (ancestry, lineage, stock) RACE (cars in a competition could be taking part in a race) double definition RACE |
|
| 32 |
Universal tender turned around at missing connection (9) Universal lender turned around at missing connection (9) UNRELATED (with no connection; missing connection) U (universal) + (an anagram of [turned] LENDER containing [around] AT) U NREL (AT) ED* |
T L |
| 35 |
Comparatively small loan arranged to cost minimum (7) Comparatively small loan arranged to coat minimum (7) NOMINAL (small, minor, in comparison with the real value) Anagram of (arranged) LOAN containing (to coat) MIN (minimum) NO (MIN) AL* |
S A |
| 36 |
Rest completely, having time at last (5) QUIET (calm; [at] rest) QUITE (completely) with the T (time) moving to the last position to form QUIET QUIET |
|
| 37 |
Draw out noodle without care for criticisms (6) Draw out without care for (6) EXTEND (stretch out; draw out) EX (excluding; without) + TEND (care for) EX TEND |
noodle criticisms |
| 38 |
Greek figurine in bronze range sharing Spartan’s heart (7) Greek figurine in bronze range snaring Spartan’s heart (7) TANAGRA (a terracotta figurine made in the town of Tanagra in ancient Boeotia [now part of modern day Greece]) TAN (brown) + (AGA [range cooker] containing [snaring] R [central letter of {heart of}] spaRtan) TAN AG (R) A |
H N |
| 39 |
Apparatus for raising plumb lines after stuff drops off (6) SHEERS (an apparatus for hoisting heavy weights, having legs or spars spread apart at their lower ends, and hoisting tackle at their joined tops) SHEER (plumb) + lineS excluding (after … drops off] LINE (to fill or stuff) SHEER S |
|
| Down | ||
| 1 |
Statue cut from oak or ebony (4) KORE (an archaic Greek statue of a draped maiden) KORE (hidden word in [cut from] oaK OR Ebony) KORE |
|
| 2 |
Trace vehicle – 1966 vintage, maybe (4) DREG (a trace or small quantity) D REG (in the UK, cars registered in 1966 had a D registration of the form [Area Code] [Sequential Numbers][Year Suffix] with appropriate spacing, where D was the Year Suffix, eg ABC 123D) D REG |
|
| 3 |
Type of plant not uncovered in shorter OED? (5) DICOT (DICOTyledon [type of plant]) O (letter remaining in nOt when the outer letters N and T are removed [uncovered]) contained in (in) DICT (abbreviation for [shorter]) DICTionary of which the OED [Oxford English Dictionary] is an example) DIC (O) T |
|
| 5 |
Fish regularly eatable, known to be cooked up (7) Fish regularly eatable, known to be cocked up (7) OOLAKAN (alternative spelling of eulachon [North Pacific candlefish]) Anagram of (cocked up) AALKONO (letters 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 [regularly] of eAtAbLe KnOwN tO) OOLAKAN* |
O C |
| 6 |
This camera technique with suit could become mostly doltish (9, 2 words) This camera technique with smit could become mostly doltish (9, 2 words) DOLLY SHOT (shot taken with a dolly camera [one that moves on a track or trolley]) An anagram of (could become) SMIT and DOLLY SHOT is MOSTLY DOLTISH DOLLY SHOT |
U M |
| 7 |
Traditional music festival half empty over welcoming heavy metal (6) FLEADH (a festival of Irish traditional music and dancing) HF (letters remaining in HalF when the central letters AL are removed [empty]) reversed (over) and containing (welcoming) LEAD (a heavy metal) F (LEAD) H< |
|
| 8 |
Record cover of E-vehicles without this supply (6) SLEEVE (record cover) Anagram of (supply – word derived from ‘supple’) E-VEhicLES excluding (without) HIC (Latin for ‘this’) SLEEVE* |
|
| 9 |
Sharer of property mostly used them to rent (9) Sharer of property mostly used ahem to rent (9) HOUSE-MATE (one person sharing a house [property] with another) Anagram of (rent) USEd excluding the final letter D (mostly) and AHEM TO HOUSEMATE* |
T A |
| 10 |
Greek island alight around its most southerly part (6) IONIAN (a native of the Ionian islands will be Greek) I (island ) + (ON [working] containing [around] NIA [the final three letters or southernmost part in IONIA is written vertically) – I’m not entirely convinced by my parsing of this I O (NIA) N |
|
| 14 |
Grumbles when returning provisions (5) SKRAN (alternative spelling of scran [food or provisions]) NARKS (grumbles) reversed (when returning) SKRAN< |
|
| 16 |
No tributes awaiting one, sadly? Stop in speech (9) No tributes awanting one, sadly? Stop in speech (9) OBSTRUENT (in phonetics [study of the sounds of spoken language or speech]; a stop or a fricative) Anagram of (sadly) NO TRiBUTES excluding (awanting) I (Roman numeral for one) OBSTRUENT* |
I N |
| 17 |
Question using jingles, bored by entirely unmusical singing (9) Question using jiggles, bored by entirely unmusical singing (9) SQUALLING (unmusical singing) (Anagram of [jiggles] Q [question] and USING containing (bored by) ALL (entirely) SQU (ALL) ING* |
N G |
| 18 |
Tayside fruit line promoted in sales (5) SLAES (Scottish [Tayside] word for sloe berries) SALES with the L raised (promoted) within the word in this down entry to form SLAES SLAES |
|
| 21 |
Trojan bones left of Hector after he’s vanquished (5) ILIAC (Trojan) ILIA (wide bones that are fused with the ischium and pubis to form the hip) + C (first letter of [left of] heCTOR after excluding [is vanquished] HE) ILIA C |
|
| 23 |
One acquiring information from purge of general? (7) One acquiring information from puree of general? (7) GLEANER (one who learns by scraping together pieces of information) Anagram of (puree) GENERAL GLEANER* |
G E |
| 25 |
Parasites acquiring hard name in skin eruption (6) LICHEN (an eruption on the skin) (LICE [parasitic insects; parisites] containing [acquiring] H [hard, when referring to pencil lead] + N (name) LIC (H) E N |
|
| 26 |
Wandering Nubian merchant in India (6) BUNNIA (Hindu merchant; merchant in India) Anagram of (wandering) NUBIAN BUNNIA* |
|
| 27 |
Check mobile’s on before scroll (6) STEMMA (a scroll) STEM (stop; check) + M (mobile) + A (before) STEM M A |
|
| 30 |
Hides storms of rage (5) PELTS (raw animal hides) PELTS (storms of rage) double definition PELTS |
|
| 33 |
Old French measure, one used on each side of the Channel (4) AUNE (an old French measure of length, especially of fabric) A (an English word for ‘one’) + UNE (a French word for ‘one’) giving ‘one’ used on either side of the Channel. A UNE |
|
| 34 |
Palms of lower organism when chitin reverses (4) Palms of lower organism when (4) ITAS (miriti palms) IT (a lower animal or organism) + AS (when) IT AS |
chitin reverses |
Very much enjoyed here — thanks in large supplies to Ifor and duncanshiell! I spotted Kipling quite soon, the first two lines being from his very famous “Recessional”, and Googled in vain for a humorous take-off before seeing KNOX and adding him to the search. The synonyms of homonyms must be a little extra treat from Ifor: one of Knox’s detective novels is titled The Three Taps.
My favourite Knox anecdote: when he was working on a new translation of the Bible a friend asked whether this would be blurbed as “By the author of The Body in the Silo“.
It took a little while but almost all unravelled in the end; having never heard of SHEERS, I put in SLEEPS (ie drops off) at 36A, which of course I couldn’t parse. In 4A, a fish is defined in Chambers as a sort of counter in a game. I agree about the parsing of 10D, though I couldn’t see it while solving. Thanks to DL above for the Three Taps reference, and to setter and blogger for challenges and enlightenment.
I enjoyed this throughout, with the theme and all its parts running through the clues, the grid and the endgame. I didn’t know the ‘humorous quatrain’ by Ronald Knox, so that was a bonus, and there were a few tricky surprises in the clues: I liked ‘D-Reg’ in the wordplay to 2d, also ‘snafu’ (22a) and ‘bar-B-Q’ (19a), the last of which I did not realise was a word in the dictionary.
I too had a bit of trouble with IONIAN. I had I(island) and ON(alight), but could not justify NIA. (Incidentally, Wikipedia tells us that Ionia, a region, is not to be confused with the Ionian Islands.)
Many thanks to Ifor for a quality puzzle and to Duncan for the excellent blog.
Great work, Ifor and duncanshiell. IONIAN: can I suggest IONA [Scottish island] with IN [alight, in the sense of burning] around A, the last letter [ie most Southerly part of a down entry] of IONA? And one Chambers definition of IONIAN is ‘an Ionic Greek’.
Thanks, Hector. I could not see IN for ‘alight’, but Chambers (under in adv) supports you! And IONIAN is certainly Greek.
Thank you to duncan for the very extensive blog, clearing up a few of the parsings that I hadn’t been able to decipher (IONIAN included).
I’m going to be slightly contrarian and say I didn’t enjoy it as much as some other puzzles because I really struggled with identifying the letter replacements, and was therefore sent down many a dead end. It’s always going to be difficult to make it ‘hard but fair’ but in this case I thought too many replacements were in anagram or container indicators, with multiple possible options (as opposed to say, a replacement in the anagram itself, which is unambiguous).
Examples include:
– 29a LODGED > BODGED; I had LOGGED initially
– 35a COST > COAT; I had HOST
– 17d JINGLES > JIGGLES; I had MINGLES
There were also COCKED UP, GOING TO POT, MINDS, SNARING, AWANTING and PUREE which perhaps were more evident, but still a little open to interpretation.
Other than that it was certainly a good challenge getting all the bits and pieces sorted out! And an interesting if slightly random quatrain. How do setters find these things?
Hector @4 is spot on with the parsing of 10d. And it took me ages to decide on then parse 39a: SHEER + (line)S – v.sneaky use of “plumb lines” by Ifor!
Thanks go to him, and to Duncan for the blog.
I may have missed this but is there any thematic significance to the various 3 letter words formed from the 3 6-letter words? I didn’t really understand the point of that bit
Alan B @5: I hadn’t checked IN in Chambers. My childhood home was heated by solid fuel stoves and the question was often asked ‘Is the stove still in or has it gone out?’.
Definitely tricky, as Arnold@6 points out, but I’d say well within the usual boundaries (it wouldn’t be the first time there was more than one possible solving, and the solver is obliged to play the long game). I liked it a lot, but wasn’t close to ‘sheers’. Thanks to Ifor and Duncan.
@9 – same here but re a coalfire in our house. Asking if the fire was ‘in’ was completely normal
Arnold @6
You make a very good point about what is ‘hard but fair’, or otherwise, in clues that involve a single-letter manipulation of one sort or another (an extra, missing or replacement letter) – a device that is very popular among both setters and solvers (I believe). I have often battled with such clues, some of which have as many as 30 plausible ways of making a single letter change. It has occurred to me that one of the most important things a test solver can do for the setter is to suggest revising a clue of this type that is too hard – or even too easy – in this regard and not just ‘prove that it works’.
I welcome skilfully executed, well-judged single-letter changes, and in one recent puzzle I found it even harder than in this one to unravel such clues while trying to solve them. Ifor’s puzzle did take quite a long time to solve (and was certainly not ‘too easy’), but I think I got lucky (or my intuition came more to my aid than it often does), and I would judge this puzzle as ‘hard but fair’.
My grateful thanks to Duncan for his typically accurate and exhaustive blog (Ionian parsing as has been subsequently explained) and to those who commented. In reply to Alan it’s worth saying that in this case the solver has two advantages that may not always feature with letter substitutions. First, the knowledge that both letters are relevant, and second that the “messages” are dictated by the theme and so ultimately predictable, rather than chosen by the setter (contrast “highlight ?i?e cells”). Nevertheless Arnold makes a good point in that some may emerge only in hindsight once possible alternatives have been discarded. As to the three-letter treatment, I’m afraid that the reasons are very mundane; I was concerned, given the lengthy preamble, about space considerations. The entries have no thematic significance. And I suppose solvers were spared the rather stereotypical clues that are often forced by short answers.