After 3 or 4 puzzles towards the easy end of the spectrum, I was expecting something fierce, to spill over into Monday’s public holiday (‘UK – not Scotland’). The rubric was brief & simple:
Eight normal clues, plus 15 with an extra letter in the wordplay, and 15 with a letter missing from the wordplay. These letters spell out 4 members of a set, the other 8 being unclued entries. What links them all is to be highlighted (9 letters).
Well, I was wrong … this wasn’t at all fierce.
Before very long I had AHERN in row 3, REYNOLDS in row 8, and DE VALERA emerging from the extra/missing letters – all former heads of government of Ireland. What links them? TAOISEACH of course, soon found in column 5.
I resisted the temptation to Google the other names for quite a while, remembering and guessing quite a few, but eventually caved in to discover that the “TWELVE” were (in chronological order): de Valera, Costello, Lemass, Lynch, Cosgrave, Haughey, FitzGerald, Reynolds, Bruton, Ahern, Cowen and Kenny, the current incumbent.
To be frank, I found this a little on the mundane side. But well done to Raich for fitting all those chaps in (& they were all male, though there have been a couple of female presidents) – however, no great PDM for me.
So, what to do on the public holiday on Monday? A long walk in the Cotswolds (followed by a little light gardening).
PS I seem to have 16 ‘extra letters’ & 14 ‘missing letters’. (The A from 29a could go either way, but that doesn’t help.) Any ideas?
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Answer (Missing letter) |
± Letter | Wordplay (Extra letter) |
| 10 | RIA | D | [RAID]* |
| 11 | EVOLVE | E | LOVE (affection) rev. + V(ictor) |
| 12 | MULATTO | V | M(ark) + [TO VAULT]* |
| 14 | PTOMAINE | A | TOM (pro, prostitute) in PINE (wooden) |
| 15 | OPPO | L | (rooft)OP PLO(t) |
| 17 | YET | YET(t) (gate, Scot) | |
| 18 | OVERLIER | E | OVER (some cricket) + I(ndia) in LR (left & right, both sides) |
| 19 | RELIEVOS | R | SO (in due course) + VEIL (cover) + E(nglish) rev. |
| 22 | OASES | A | (m)OSES (prophet) |
| 25 | REEST | [ESTHER]* − H(ard) | |
| 28 | TOURACOS | H | [CHAOS]* after TOUR (journey round) |
| 29 | TAR | A | TANGIER − ANGIE (girl) |
| 31 | EYRE | U | (b)EY(s) + RUE (regret) |
| 33 | WIN UPON | G | WING (section of party) + U(nited) + P(ower) + O(ld) + N(ew) |
| 34 | LOUCHE | H | LOUSE (contemptible type) with C(ocaine) for S(on) |
| 35 | TEL | homophone: TELL (Swiss hero) | |
| 36 | OSSEIN | E | O(b)S(e)S(s)I(o)N |
| 37 | Y-LEVEL | Y | V (vide, see) after LE (the, French) + EL (the, Spanish) |
| Down | |||
| No. | Answer (Missing letter) |
± Letter | Wordplay (Extra letter) |
| 1 | BUMPY | K | BUM (sponger) + P(o)K(e)Y |
| 2 | ROUTER | E | RR (Right Reverend, bishop) around OUT (unfashionable) |
| 3 | TRAMPLER | TR(ustee) + AMPLE (liberal) + R(eact) | |
| 4 | NATIVELY | N | AT + IV (four) + ELY (see) |
| 5 | LEONE | N | LEE (shelter) around O(ld) |
| 6 | MOHO | Y | (que)MOY HO(use) |
| 7 | ALEPINE | F | [PALE]* + FINE (excellent) |
| 8 | SENORITA | I | [TENOR]* in SA (South Africa) |
| 9 | BLOT | T | B(eing) L(eft) O(ut) |
| 13 | AERO | ER (monarch) in AO (Army Order) | |
| 16 | PENS | Z | PS (postscript) around EZ(ra) + N(ew) |
| 20 | VINOSITY | G | [SOT IVY + GIN]* |
| 21 | SELF-RULE | E | [FEEL SURE L(eague]* |
| 23 | AHOY | A H(alt) + O(ffal)Y | |
| 24 | STURNUS | R | SR (sister) + TURN (hand over) + US (American) |
| 26 | EACH | (p)EACH (fruit) | |
| 27 | SAVOIE | OI(k) (lout) in SAVE (bar) | |
| 29 | TAPE | A | AP (Air Police) in TEA |
| 30 | RENAL | L | REN (follow, formerly) + ALL (everything) |
| 32 | ECCE | D | CE (church) after DEC(laration) |
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I completed the Inquisitor two weeks in a row. I don’t think that has ever happened before!
Can’t help with the counting. I didn’t count up myself when solving, and the completed grid is 5000 miles away.
Even I completed over 90% of this one but no complaints -it is unusual for me to make much headway with most Inquisitors-long live the gentler puzzles-there is no pleasure for us simpler soles in the difficult ones
I did this in the caravan in Sussex without the benefit of the Internet, so it must have been on the gentle side!
I could not find the R in FitzgeRald – I had S for sister, not SR, and had not checked it in the dictionary, so thanks for the blog HG. I had doubts about WIN UPON – have you ever heard anyone use it as an expression?
My missing/extra letter count agrees with yours, 16/14 not 15 all, so we still await enlightenment from another commenter!
Looking back at the puzzle details, I’ve discovered that RENAL was incorrectly put down as a ‘missing letter’ clue. Unfortunately I did not spot this either during the proof-reading and check solving stage. Apologies. Re WIN UPON, it is in Chambers. I’ve never heard it either but that’s true of much else in that dict…
We also finished this fairly quickly but we were busy over the Bank Holiday so didn’t mind too much!
We try and keep the puzzle for checking but cannot find it but we do know that we had a query. Unfortunately we can’t remember what it was about! Put it down to our age!
We did have to guess a couple of the PMs befor checking them online!
Thanks Raich and HG.
As a PS to #4, the wordplay in 30D should have led to RENA with the L missing (rather than, as it did, to RENALL with an extra L)
Thanks go to Raich @4 & @6 for clearing up the missing/extra letter issue. And I agree with him: there are many words & phrases in Chambers that are used in crosswords and that I’ve never heard used.
One of the winning entries out of the hat for this excellent puzzle was the well known solving pair, Devalera Haughey and Kenny Fitzgerald.