Solving time: c. 80 mins
A fairly gentle puzzle this one – thematic clues just lead to phrases of words associated with the school subjects mentioned. Enumerations for these indicated which phrases had an AND that wasn’t included in the grid – or they did for those paying closer attention than me. Quite a lot of clues here were no more complicated than you’d expect in a daily paper puzzle, so I suspect some people ripped though this, and those who think Inquisitor puzzles have a duty to be easy should be happy with this one. I think I filled the grid without Chambers, though two rather careless answers needed correcting while writing this.
| Thematic | |
|---|---|
| 4/47 | Geography and History = THERE and THEN |
| 7/45 | SEN and Behaviour Management = ODDS and SODS – SEN = Special Educational Needs, I think – possibly a tad un-PC. |
| 42/22 | Food Technology and English Literature = COOKING THE BOOKS |
| 46/1 | Drama and Music = STARS and BARS |
| 9/12 | Business Studies and Sports = SALES PITCHES |
| 11 | RE, Biology, Chemistry and Physics = OMNISCIENCE |
| 21/18 | Numeracy = COUNTER/INTELLIGENCE |
| Across | |
| 13 | NO STRUM – fingerpicking must be playing the guitar as a melody instrument rather than strumming to make chords. |
| 15 | MORNES – RN in some* – the blunt heads of jousting lances, says C |
| 24 | BRAHMA from Johannes BrahmS. |
| 37 | S,ENTRY = ‘s = has |
| 41 | TEE OFF – ‘this’ with “tee off” = ‘his’ |
| 43 | PIE – part of an anna, which in turn is part of a rupee. |
| 44 | NOSE = “knows” |
| Down | |
| 1 | BONEIDLE – didn’t quite get the wordplay here but have just cracked it. Clue: Old English good for nothing lied about being very lazy. IDLE for the back end is obvious enough. For BONE, you take OE = Old English and replace the O=nothing with BON=good. |
| 5 | H(on)OUR |
| 19 | LEAT(hers) – a leat is a race in the mill-race sense |
| 23 | S,ONES – nice simple &lit. |
| 25 | AN(A LOG)ON |
| 31 | FATES – there were 3 fates, and it’s also (30=FESTA)* |
| 34 | IRISH – rishi = poet, with the last I moved to the top. |
| 36 | PESO = (J)osep(h) |
| 38 | E-FIT = (t(h)ief)* |
“those who think Inquisitor puzzles have a duty to be easy should be happy with this one”
below the belt!…though I admit this was the easiest Inquisitor for a while…others have been pretty desperate (Listener standard)!
Not quite sure what you mean by “below the belt”. I certainly didn’t mean to criticise the puzzle for being easy – I think quality and difficulty of puzzles are independent (oh dear – a pun without actually trying!).
For 25dn I had ANALOGUE – I didn’t really think about it. So for 4/47 I was looking for TH_R_ and _HEE. I thought that the last word had to be THEE (a historical form of YOU). So I gave up after a while. I really should’ve looked harder.