Inquisitor 1255: Last to Go by ___

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Preamble: Several clues contain words to be extracted before solving. These surplus words fall into 6 consecutive blocks of 4, each block providing material to define two further words: one of each pair is an otherwise unclued grid entry, the other a word that differs from that entry in a consistent way. Filling in the central square, solvers must highlight two names – the pseudonym of one, in conjunction with other features of the puzzle, will reveal the setter of this puzzle to be entered over the grid, while the equivalent remnants of the pseudonym of the other must be highlighted in an unclued entry.

So, another “whodunnit”, eh? That’s two in a row for me to blog.
Interesting that the first sentence of the preamble says “several clues …” then the second sentence says “… 6 consecutive blocks of 4 …” I quickly worked out that 6×4=24! At this stage, of course, I had no idea what we were going to do with the extra words but knowing that the blocks of four were in consecutive clues made finding the extra words that bit easier. While solving, I kept a watchful eye on both diagonals, as I’m sure every Inquisitor solver does all of the time, and I saw that I could almost pronounce the first part of NW-SE – HABLOT, sounds French! Then I looked at the few I had in the second part and BROWN(E) jumped out. A quick trip to Wikipedia established that HABLOT BROWNE (English, not French) was the main artist for Charles Dickens‘s books. Another look at NE-SW and I realised that we wanted to put DICKENS there but that put a K in the centre square? Of course, old Hablot’s middle name was Knight, so that’s that bit done and dusted.
Time to concentrate on the six groups. By now I had most (if not all) completed. The first group was first to succumb: QUART and QUARTZ, which made me think we were looking for homonyms until I re-read the preamble, “… differs from that entry in a consistent way.” Once I had (Sophia) LOREN, I chanced my arm and found (Konrad) LORENZ, whom I’d never heard of! The rest fell into place quite easily – see the table below although (Lola) MONTEZ proved tricky to justify since she was Irish but she specialised in “Spanish dancing.” And JEWISH IMPREGNATE COOKERY SPLEEN took a while to unravel – I hope I have it right. The last guy (Pierre) BOULEZ might as well have a name check as well, don’t want to upset anyone 😉

So, on to the last piece of the puzzle, Hablot’s pseudonym was PHIZ and Charlie’s pseudonym was BOZ. BO (without the Z) could be found at the start of BOULE, leaving PHI as our setter.
And the title of the puzzle, “Last to go” indicates that the last letter of the alphabet has to go. (There are no Z’s in the grid.)
Nice neat puzzle. Thanks to PHIZ and BOZ for providing the inspiration and special thanks to PHI.

So our six groups were:

No.	Word	Composite clue	Answer
1	COMMON	TWO PINTS	QUART
9	PINTS
11	MINERAL	COMMON MINERAL	QUARTZ
12	TWO
20	AUSTRIAN	ITALIAN ACTRESS	LOREN
22	ZOOLOGIST
24	ACTRESS	AUSTRIAN ZOOLOGIST	LORENZ
27	ITALIAN
35	SPANISH	CARD GAME	MONTE
36	DANCER
37	GAME	SPANISH DANCER	MONTEZ
38	CARD
2	JEWISH	IMPREGNATE	MILT
3	IMPREGNATE
4	COOKERY	SPLEEN (JEWISH COOKERY)	MILTZ
5	SPLEEN
10	MATERIAL	GREASY MATERIAL	GLIT
15	GREASY
18	APPEARANCE	GARISH APPEARANCE	GLITZ
21	GARISH
25	GREEK	GREEK PARLIAMENT	BOULE
26	COMPOSER
29	FRENCH	FRENCH COMPOSER	BOULEZ
30	PARLIAMENT

Across
No.	Clue (definition)	Entry	Extra word	Wordplay
1	Common American group with millions invested in Chinese farmer	HUSBANDMAN	COMMON	US (American)+BAND (group) inside (invested) HAN (Chinese)
9	Girl, English, to finish pints	EDIE	PINTS	English+DIE (to finish)
11	Forbidden cross containing mineral phosphorus	TAPU	MINERAL	Phoshorus inside TAU (cross)
12	A two pound source of tripe, not initially white	ALBUMEN	TWO	A+LB (pound)+lUMEN (source of tripe; not initially)
13	Poet with heroin aboard vessel	LORCHA		Heroin inside LORCA (poet)
14	Face attempt to reverse discussion in New York	DIALOG		DIAL (face)+GO (rev)
16	Arab going to most of proper camp	DUAR		DUe (proper; most of)+ARab
17	Poet’s godless article so punctured by heads of each order	ATHEOUS		Each Order (heads of) inside A (article)+THUS (so)
19	Chromosome in time securing regional father figure?	IDANT		DA (regional father) inside IN Time
20	Austrian euphemism: term for cat meat	GOSHT	AUSTRIAN	GOSH (euphemism)+caT (end: term)
22	Expert zoologist backing Dutch species affected by habitat	ECAD	ZOOLOGIST	ACE (rev: backing)+Dutch
24	Some model, actress and starlet – graceful creatures	ELANDS	ACTRESS	modEL AND Starlet (hidden: some)
27	Fen decorated by French and English in Italian celebration	EN FÊTE	ITALIAN	FEN (anag: decorated)+ET (French and)+English
28	Lives for Hollande’s rivals	VIES		(double def) Lives in French (Hollande being French President)
30	This writer recalled study in German city	EMDEN		ME (this writer; rev: recalled)+DEN (study)
32	Player performing in French opera	MANON		MAN (player)+ON (performing)
33	Pacino role left one enthralled by crazy actor	CARLITO(‘s Way)		Left+I (one) inside ACTOR (anag: crazy)
35	Spanish gold? French are producing other minerals	ORES	SPANISH	OR (gold)+ES (are in French)
36	Rare washer, not half dirty, came up to dancer	GROMET	DANCER	GROtty (dirty; not half)+MET (came up to)
37	Molecular group I go to find in Holland game	NITRYL	GAME	I+TRY (go to find) inside NL (Netherlands: Holland)
38	Ray Wood playing opening card	DOORWAY	CARD	RAY WOOD (anag: playing)
40	Local manure, found in compost at home	TATH		composT AT Home (hidden: found in)
41	Director’s kept round designer	DIOR		O (round) inside DIRector
42	Part of town I see emerging from eccentricity in redesign	CITY-CENTRE		ECCENTRicITY minus I C (see) (anag: in redesign)

Down
No.	Clue (definition)	Entry	Extra word	Wordplay
1	Man saws, getting farm subsidies	HEADAGES		HE (man)+ADAGES (saws)
2	Piqued comment penned by suspect Jewish governors	SUBAHS	JEWISH	BAH (piqued comment) inside SUSpect
3	Impregnate kine easily, only some getting born	NEE	IMPREGNATE	kiNE Easily (hidden: only some)
4	Aloe chopped in a cookery broadcast in some Greek style	AEOLIAN	COOKERY	ALOE (anag: chopped)+IN A (anag: broadcast)
5	Historic spleen discharge: see a gash filled with a discharge, ultimately	VACUATE	SPLEEN	V (see)+A inside CUT (gash)+dischargE (ultimately)
6	Dense rock apparently molten in heat	APHANITE		APparently+IN HEAT (anag: molten)
7	Alan’s attraction arrived by chance	ALIT		ALan+IT (attraction)
8	The Scotsman’s tips promoted compositor	SMOOT		TOOMS (tips; rev: promoted)
10	Material grains upset onset of each enzyme	DNase	MATERIAL	SAND (grains; rev: upset)+Each (onset of)
15	Greasy guest, slovenly, died, having eaten greedily	GUSTED	GREASY	GUEST (anag: slovenly)+Died
18	Pouch of rocks that is black and silver, retaining cold appearance	ICE BAG	APPEARANCE	Cold inside IE (that is)+Black+AG (silver)
21	Triumphal comments about air for garish flowering plants	OLEARIAS	GARISH	ARIA (air) inside OLES (triumphal comments)
23	Similar individuals’ uppish attitude, limited by pain, minimal energy	GENOTYPE		TONE (rev: uppish) inside GYP (pain)+Energy (minimal)
25	Greek girl’s difficulty blocking advance payment	ANNETTE	GREEK	NET (difficulty) inside ANTE (advance payment)
26	Real Aussie composer: neat couple of pieces from didgeridoo	DINKY-DI	COMPOSER	DINKY (neat)+DIdgeridoo (couple of pieces)
29	Old French coin driving activity, nothing more	SCUDO	FRENCH	SCUD (driving activity)+O (nothing)
30	Parliament: Queen’s run out before Minister’s final gaffe	ERROR	PARLIAMENT	ER (Queen)_RO (run out)+ministeR (final)
31	Charley has one band engaged in old lyric	DIMWIT		I (one)+MW (band: medium wave) inside DIT (old lyric)
34	Some cute answer from erotic poet	TEAN		cuTE ANswer (hidden: some)
39	Company around river picking up Tolkien creation	ORC		River inside COmpany (rev: picking up)

10 comments on “Inquisitor 1255: Last to Go by ___”

Hi of hihoba

@1

November 21, 2012 at 7:57 am

I thought this was a cracker! We’ve had a superb run of Inquisitors recently.

I came to the answer in a slightly different way to kenmac. I found most of the blocks of four extra words and found the Italian actress and Austrian zoologist connection first, got the Z connection from that and QUARTZ, then Dickens/ Boz and Hablot K Browne/Phiz last of all. Final tidying up followed. I agree about the Irish Spanish dancer, but was happy to forgive Phi for the minor misdirection!
Thomas99

@2

November 21, 2012 at 10:02 am

I really appreciate it when a blog is done as well as this. Many thanks. It was a great puzzle, brilliantly constructed. I couldn’t believe it when he actually turned out to have been called “Hablot”! You always have to read those rubrics carefully – I wasted some time assuming that the four words had to be taken in the order they appeared, which of course is not actually implied in the instructions. (“Greek composer?”, “French Parliament??” etc. – I seemed to spend ages on Xenakis, Vangelis and Sénat before the penny dropped.)
Steve Foulds

@3

November 21, 2012 at 1:10 pm

Enjoyable puzzle for me too. I saw Browne on diagonal but didn’t expect Hablot to be a name. My way in was also Quartz. On solving the clues I wouldn’t have guessed it was a Phi although I’ve solved many of his puzzles overtryhe years.
Li Geear

@4

November 21, 2012 at 7:25 pm

Oh what a beautiful blog and a just as beautiful IQ. Yes, indeed, kenmac we do automatically look at those diagonals as the clues go in and actually the NW corner quite quickly gave me Hablot. I remember when studying Dickens what seems like hundreds of years ago we also looked at the illustrators, and this gave me that final letter which made the rest of the puzzle work like a dream.
Thanks to you and of course to Phi.
HolyGhost

@5

November 21, 2012 at 8:20 pm

I was initially misled by a (too?) literal reading of the second sentence of the preamble: “These surplus words fall into 6 consecutive blocks of 4” – it’s the clues that are in blocks of 4 not the extra words, & also it’s the clues within each block that are consecutive not the blocks themselves; this led me to suspect that the blocks would be formed by cells in the grid … ah well. It was only when I discovered LOREN(Z) that I unravelled my error. And then things moved along smoothly.

I noted that “Last to go” means not only the last letter of the alphabet had to go, but also the last letter of the word, and as I was completing the puzzle, I thought that LATO (or LODA) might be the setter, though PHI did cross my mind. So thanks to him, and to kenmac for a rather fine blog.
BertandJoyce

@6

November 21, 2012 at 11:18 pm

This really was a tour de force from one of our favourite setters. Where does he get his ideas from?

We’d solved most of the puzzle without knowing why but on googling the diagonal, on the off chance it all fell into place.

A fantastic blog kenmac – it really does justice to a brilliant puzzle. The Inquisitor is the highlight of our weekend. We haven’t missed one since the paper started and this was one of the best!

Thanks Phi for a puzzle full of Phiz!
Phi

@7

November 22, 2012 at 7:02 am

I had a discussion with the ed re Ms Montez. It struck me that people would be wary of assuming anyone called Montez was Irish, and she was a ‘Spanish dancer’ according to what was effectively a genre. I made a particular point was that you’d still call your local fast-food shop an ‘Indian takeaway’ even if the proprietor was born in Walsall.
jon surdy

@8

November 23, 2012 at 3:58 pm

I don’t understand the word pairs for milt/miltz
Violet

@9

November 23, 2012 at 11:15 pm

Jon at 8: MILT(Z) aren’t pairs – it’s 1+3. Look in Chambers for MILT: (of fishes) to impregnate, and the spleen (also, in Jewish cookery, MILTZ).
jon surdy

@10

November 24, 2012 at 4:17 pm

Thanks Violet

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