Inquisitor 1323: Achieve Dead Boxer’s Struggle by Ifor

12 comments on “Inquisitor 1323: Achieve Dead Boxer’s Struggle by Ifor”

1. It took some thinking (especially the ‘nominal changes’, which were very clever, and the title which threw me a bit until I realised it was a clue construction), but I got there in the end, however, I got side tracked for a long time trying to find a suitable quote…I thought of the ‘all animals equal’ line straight away, but discarded it because, to me, it didn’t really explain why the animals should be replaced with pigs, although it evidently makes sense to Kenmac.

   Good fun, and a nice reminder of a great book.

   I read 35ac as ILIAN (=of Troy) ‘broken’ by returning (i.e. backwards) A(Ante=before), D(Day), and 26ac as an anagram of MAGI LED with D(Deus=God) replaced by E(East).

   Thanks to Ifor and Kenmac

2. I too couldn’t parse 26a and 35a so thanks to Dan for helping me sort these out.

   I came at this from the other direction in that I could see that the clashes were suggesting that the replacement words in 20d and 1a could be RUNT and BOAR respectively. Something from the dregs of my memory told me that “Boxer” was a character in Animal Farm and that and the famous quotation led me quickly to the theme. Funnily enough I couldn’t find where to put SOW until the end as I thought 24 across’s “supportive cry” would be an example of a word unknown to me and not in Chambers. Consequently it was my LOI. I almost forgot the “nominal changes” but they were now obvious and explained why I hadn’t been able to fully parse two other clues.

   Thanks Ifor for reminding me of my younger days – Animal Farm was a set book at O-level – and kenmac for the blog.

3. I meant to add (Howard@2) the observation that since “Einar” is a Scandanavian name 6d could be regarded as an &Lit. If so then it is one of the first I’ve recognised unaided so no doubt someone will now explain why it isn’t!

4. Animal Farm was my set box for O-level, too, but I totally failed to make the connection and didn’t get any of the substitutions.

5. Great puzzle from Ifor

   I went on so many wild goose chases as to what the theme was, having convinced myself early on that Salvador Dali must have neen involved somewhere (D + ALI – dead boxer…). I then looked uo dali quotes to see there was one about him wanting to ne Napoleon (also a character in AF) when he was a boy. That threw me into an Orwell/Animal Farm/Homage to Catalonia tizz until my head hurt

   Good stuff, and thanks for the blog

6. Incidentally, there was an Animal farm themer in the Listener very recently too

7. bingybong@5 Your solving account was identical to my own ! I was looking for a Dali quotation too but they are all so long and solipsistic I gave up in the end in disgust. I eventually forced myself to focus and having seen and solved the BLAIR/ORWELL nominal change early I kicked myself for not seeing the link to the quotation straight away. It was only when I had a genuine PDM that I realised that there must also be an ERIC/GEORGE connection for the second nominal change. That was my lead in to AF as I didn’t get the Boxer connection until afterwards

   Great crossword, slightly tarnished for me by ending up with ‘nonsense’ words in the final grid, with the emphasis on ‘slightly’ !

   Best of the year so far in my opinion.

   Thanks to Ifor, please come back soon, and to kenmac for an excellent, full blog,

8. This was best of the year so far for me, too. I like ’em when I can’t work out the complete denouement until I’ve finished the whole thing; too often I see the whole theme quickly and am then left with one or two fiddly clues I can’t work out. It took me for ever to work out the clue in the title to reach WIN-D-… before the obvious answer hit me. Fun stuff. Thanks for the blog.

9. My thanks for the comments and the comprehensive (comprepigsive?) blog. #Howard L – I’ve given up claiming any clue of mine is an &lit; as you say, someone will always find a reason to disagree. #Rob H – you’re asking a lot if you want real words in the grid. There are some eight or ten types of creature named in the book, and I suppose about that number of pig synonyms. Finding pairs of longish container words such that words from one list can replace those of the same length in the other is rather optimistic. There’s also the general point that real words can in principle allow solvers to guess entries from crosschecks without understanding the theme.

   Also, Rob – thank you for the thought – I’d love to come back soon, as you put it, but of course that will depend on the editor!

   Ifor

10. Thanks for the comments Ifor.

    I meant to add to my comments @7 that I think it would have been very optimistic to expect ‘real words’. And you’re right, it did give the puzzle an extra texture and raised the solving difficulty level by not having real words.

    Agree totally with Ross@8: I enjoyed it because it kept revealing its layers right to the end and there was minimal ‘back-filling’.
    And finally, whoever came up with DOLL as a name for a pig ?!

    Best regards.

11. Been out of the country and Independent-less for a few months so I’m out of practice at these things, just getting my eye back in now.

    I completed a fair wodge of this without even coming close to getting the theme. I only actually identified two clues (1a and 14d) where there was a replacement needed, but what those were I never got near. Led astray in several places, the most egregious being when I managed to convince myself that there was such a word as “concredent”, which threw the right hand side out of true …

    Disappointed in myself. Never mind, this week’s attempt was more successful.

12. Having won the champagne this week this is definitely my favourite this year so far.

    And having won it twice now in the space of a few weeks, I think it’s time to put a somewhat embarrassed temporary halt to entering the comppetition !

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