This blog of the Boxing Day puzzle will come out after New Year, but here’s wishing you all a Great New Year of Inquisitorial fun. If it is anything like the year just past (the most consistently high standard ever?) we are in for many a treat from Nimrod and his team.
The last time we met Plench was in the (in)famous Woodchuck pair of puzzles in Jan/Feb 2013. The following comment was made by the Editor when commenting on Inquisitor 1416. For anyone wishing to guess the perpetrator of IQ1418, I’ll give you the reassuring clue that the pseudonym in question will not be reappearing on January 2! No duplicate grid next week then.
The clues were normal, though six of the answers had to be “thematically augmented”. There were some complex three-dimensional instructions too.
All clues are normal. Answers to six numbered clues must be thematically augmented before entry. The first letter of each addition must be considered as the top left cell of a different 4×4 grid. These six grids can be assembled to form the external faces of a 4x4x4 cube of letters. Each grid may appear in any one of the four possible orientations. The “Face-to-Face” clues yield 4-letter words which can be read horizontally or vertically from one face of the cube, through the cube’s core, ending on the opposite face (each of the relevant individual cubes being associated with just a single letter). Solvers must deduce the letters of the central 2x2x2 cube and arrange them to form a single word to be written under the grid. The puzzle‘s theme is an anagram of the letters in the silver cells.
I ignored the 3D complication and the Face-to-Face stuff and solved the grid. Not too difficult, though it definitely required the use of my trusty on-line Chambers.
The six “augmentations” were in 1A batTUEs, 7A sWEDen, 20A coTHUrnus, 32A dinMONts, 1D backFRIends and 22D tSUNamis. i.e. six of the days of the week, but omitting SATURDAY (the day the crossword came out). The day of the crossword also gave us BOXING DAY, the anagram of YXNODAIBG, the letters in the silver cells referred to in the preamble.
Now to the 3D problem. First the face-to-face clues. These were relatively straightforward
| Clue (definition) | Answer | Wordplay |
| Eve’s intended a bit of Disney in the morning | ADAM | A + D(isney) + AM (in the morning) |
| Student abandons study to do Xmas post perhaps? | EARN | (L)EARN (study) minus L (student) |
| A frolic if left with toy boat | LARK | L(eft) + ARK (toy boat) |
| Muddle things up, reckoning to return to carols at the end | MUSS | SUM (reckoning) reversed + (carol)S |
| A woman’s name – it might be Mary | MYRA | [MARY]* |
| For Uncle Sam, face of special animal in the stable | SASS | face is cheek in the US (see here) as is sass: S(pecial) + ASS (animal in stable) |
| Days like today, they are testing | SATS | Double definition – Saturdays and Standard Assessment Tests |
| A sign of Christmas in the newspaper | STAR | Double definition – Christmas Star and Daily Star |
Careful reading of the 3D instructions in the preamble led me to the conclusion that the “inner 2x2x2 cube” of eight letters must be made up of the middle two letters of the 8 answers above, i.e. DAARARUSYRASATTA. It was not too big a jump to deduce that the 8 letters in the cube was made up of the 8 letter word SATURDAY, some of the letters are used more than once, and that this was the word to be written below the grid.
After this revelation I had, for the purposes of this blog, to complete the cube, though it seemed a pretty sterile exercise, as I already knew the answer. I always feel that it is a weakness in a puzzle if it is possible to enter the competition without fully completing all elements of it, and this was a prime case of that. Not only that but it took me two days of thought and experimentation with cut-out models to do the cube, though it was worth it in the end!
Blogs are not a good place to be doing 3D drawing so the primary solution is a 2D representation with a later 3D attempt (less than 100% successful, but the best I could do!).
I eventually was able to piece together the cube by realising that there were six answers including the letter A and only two As in SATURDAY, so each of them had to be used in all three directions. Also there were two ARs and two ATs, so that one layer of the inner cube had to be
giving the bottom layer as:
This pairs the THU and SUN faces as the back and front (see below) and the FRI and WED faces as the left and right. It follows from the MS of MUSS in the L/R pair and the fact that the D must be over an A (for ADAM) and the Y over an R for MYRA, that the top layer was:
The inner cube in its other orientation gives:
So the outer cube is as below. The 6 faces, copied from the grid using the first letter of Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri are below, paired up as shown. I hope that this gives you some idea of how difficult it was to piece together in 3D!
The colour coding is as follows:
Pair 1: STAR LARK
Pair 2: SASS ADAM MYRA
Pair 3: SATS EARN MUSS
Good puzzle by Plench – pretty straightforward until the 3D bit, but nicely constructed. The title refers to the inner cube (box?) being “wrapped” in the outer cube like a present on Boxing Day! Excellent idea. Pity about being able to do it by guesswork rather than working it all out.
And, not liking to be beaten, I can show you two 3D orientations of the inner cube . . .
. . . and two of the outer cube, though these may be more confusing than the 2D version!!
The grid and clues are below. The colours showing the day names are mine.
Across |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue (definition) | AnsInsertwer | Wordplay |
| 1 | Coming from the East, go crazy (7) | BATTUES | STAB (go) reversed (coming from the East) |
| 7 | In Tokyo change one’s unopened presents around (6) | SWEDEN | (o)NE’S reversed (presents around) |
| 12 | Notice Peter Pan character runs back and cancels what’s left (6) | ADEEMS | AD (notice) + SMEE (Peter Pan character) reversed |
| 13 | A leader of nations among assuredly old births (5) | YEANS | A + N(ations) in YES |
| 14 | After start of Christmas, measure a rector’s stock of wine (6) | CELLAR | C(hristmas) + ELL (measure) + A + R(ector) |
| 15 | “A light outside for all to view” (last of innkeepers in charge) (5) | FUSEE | U (for all to see) + (innkeeper)S in FEE (charge) |
| 16 | Ready euros misplaced — unable to fly? (8) | APTEROUS | APT (ready) + [EUROS]* |
| 18 | Notes hints of festive season around start of Advent (3) | FAS | F(estive) S(eason) round A(dvent) |
| 19 | Swear interminably about half decorated trees (9) | COTHURNUS | CUS(s) (swear interminably) round ORN(ate) (half decorated) |
| 21 | Scuttlebutt is a rough game enjoyed by many (5) | RUMOR | Scuttlebutt is an American term for gossip exchanged round the water fountain and the answer is an American spelling: RU (rough game) + MOR (Middle Of the Road – enjoyed by many) |
| 22 | Turkey’s place is entirely without trimmings (4) | TIRE | Hidden in enTIREly |
| 24 | A complaint millions echo – sales all over the place (7) | MEASLES | M(illions) + E(cho) + [SALES]* |
| 26 | Stuffing of sage, rosemary being worthy of praise (4) | EROS | Hidden in sagE ROSemary |
| 28 | Even Queen’s broadcast is tense (5) | QUITS | QU(een) + [IS T(ense)]* |
| 29 | Pantomime hero in no doubt, initially, about old sharks (9) | RHINEODON | [HERO IN]* (pantomime) + NO D(oubt) reversed (about) |
| 31 | Biblical reading in Sanskrit (3) | KRI | Hidden in SansKRIt |
| 32 | Aftermath of too much beer drinking in The Hollows (8) | DINMONTS | DT’S (delirium tremens – aftermath of too much beer) round (drinking) IN |
| 34 | Otherwise known as Santa’s last westbound course, maybe (5) | ALIAS | (Sant)A + SAIL (course maybe) reversed |
| 35 | Small community tree over in Derby, say (6) | HAMLET | ELM (tree) reversed in HAT (Derby, say) |
| 36 | “Dismal”, proclaimed one publisher of Snow White (5) | GRIMM | Sounds like GRIM |
| 37 | Lament Grinch stealing new church on Santa’s night? (6) | GRIEVE | GRI(nch) minus N(ew) CH(urch) + EVE (Santa’s night) |
| 38 | Recommend adult drama’s opening – it might be gripping for Jonathan (6) | ADVISE | A(dult) D(rama) = VISE (American – Jonathan – spelling of VICE) |
| 39 | Mince pies put onto tray I left out — chow for one? (7) | YAPSTER | Chow = dog: [P(i)ES TRAY]* |
Down |
|||
| 1 | Neck roughly grabbed by disagreeable local post- Yuletide? (10) | BACKFRIEND | [NECK]* in BAD (disagreeable) |
| 2 | Are diamonds and gold hidden by Rene brought back for high-up German? (8) | ADENAUER | A(re) + D(iamonds) + AU (gold in RENE reversed |
| 3 | Not one for spoiling timeless charms (7) | TELESMS | [T(i)MELESS]* |
| 4 | Technology to keep us in touch with some Celt revelling (8) | TELECOMS | [SOME CELT]* |
| 5 | Cocktail of rum welcomes a man from Arabia? (4) | UMAR | [RUM]* round A |
| 6 | My, my! Toyshops I managed in divisive operation (13) | SYMPHYSIOTOMY | [MY MY TOYSHOPS I]* |
| 7 | Increased time put in to make more appealing lighting device (9) | SEXTUPLED | T(ime) in SEX UP (make more appealing) + LED (lighting device) |
| 8 | Like a thin slice of cake? Week before New Year gathering fine (6) | WAFERY | W(eek) + F(ine) in [YEAR]* |
| 9 | Bury’s merry reunion letting loose joyous cry (5) | ENURN | [REUN(io)N]* (IO is a joyous cry) |
| 10 | Fast runners from east advancing in area of stabling (5) | EMEUS | E(ast) is advanced to the start of MEUSE (= mews) |
| 11 | Where’s the old game starting, in any event? (3) | NYE | Nye (obsolete) = nid – a pheasant’s nest: hidden in aNY Event |
| 17 | Drizella or Anastasia set about getting priests inebriated (10) | STEPSISTER | Drizella and Anastasia are the stepsisters in Disney’s Cinderella: [SET PRIESTS]* |
| 20 | Crackers aren‘t made for, say, Amazon (9) | TRADENAME | [ARENT MADE]* |
| 22 | Glazed fabric is added to hat for Hogmanay? (8) | TSUNAMIS | TAM (hat) + IS |
| 23 | Get back down squiffy from bottled red wine trove (8) | RETRIEVE | Remove [DOWN]* from [RE(d w)I(n)E TR(o)VE]* |
| 25 | Set to sleep over, something to toast in the village hall (7) | PIKELET | TELE (set) + KIP (sleep) all reversed |
| 27 | Is a rising leader of Shepherds Union (6) | ENOSIS | IS ONE (a) reversed + S(hepherds) |
| 29 | Annoyed cheese supplier turned up after end of dinner (5) | RILED | DELI (cheese supplier) reversed after (dinne)R |
| 30 | Twice I must wrap returned vessel of richly-decorated porcelain (5) | IMARI | II round RAM (vessel) reversed |
| 33 | Angel carries this king through accident (4) | HARP | HAP (accident) round R (king) |
| 34 | Abridged version of Ab Fab’s omitting female in striped clothing (3) | ABA | remove F(emale) and abridge AB(f)A(b) |
Great work Hihoba! I was thinking that the 3D element would prove a stern test of the blogger!
Like you, I was able to guess what the mystery word would be once I had completed the grid (which did require a couple of pointers from my dad to get things finished). But thankfully I wasn’t required to complete all of the paper folding to work out how it fell into place.
Thanks to Plench.
Well done Hi and Ho and Ba. And thanks to PL and EN and CH for many hours of fun.
I agree that the puzzle wasn’t too difficult though I failed to solve LARK – d’oh!
I guessed SATURDAY and then, together with my daughter, tried to solve the three-dimensionality. After several failed attempts with paper, glue and sticky tape, we turned to the (soon to be) leftover Christmas Liquorice Allsorts.
Many tries and even more laughs later, we gave up and I thought, “gee, I’m glad I’m not blogging this!” But having looked at your monumental efforts, I’m insanely jealous. What a good job you’ve done. Way beyond the call of duty.
Most enjoyable.
Whilst the 3D element obviously wasn’t needed to find the missing word (indeed, like many I expect, I found it actually helped to solve some of the face-to-face clues), I just thought of it as a bonus problem to while away the time. I had a lot of fun (should I admit to that?) setting up a spreadsheet to help me solve this part – which, once I’d worked out that I’d copied one of the squares down incorrectly, it did very quickly.
Cheers Plench and thanks also to Hihoba.
I am in awe of Plench for setting this puzzle and of Hihoba for illustrating its solution. Many thanks to both (or all) of them.
It was just a pity that the full solution quickly emerged after completing the grid and a few of the Face-to- Face clues (I never did solve SASS and STAR). I toyed with the idea of constructing the cube to see how it all fitted together but, in the end, found something else I’d rather do. Apologies to Plench for not sticking with it.
Agree with Hihoba that this has been the hardest year for IQs since I started doing them about ten years ago … and then to finish the year with a couple of really hard ones, just at the time when we are heavily involved with pre-Christmas arrangements, is really turning the screw.
I solved everything, including the face-to-facers and the silver cells anagram, but gave up on the daunting 3-D challenge, and thus the whole puzzle. Now Hihoba explains how, with one simple logical deduction, we never actually needed to resort to scissors and paper. Enormous respect to him for that… he is WHEAT and I am undoubtedly CHAFF … GRRRRR !
After solving five of the face-to-face clues I had DA, AR, US, YR and TA. Seven unique letters with an obvious thematic anagram. I got one more of the clues but never did get the last two.
Yes – two in a row on the easy side (apart from the 3D game at the end). Managed this one on the flight back from
CypressCyprus (so again no Google, no Wikipedia) although the hotel receptionist had printed the entire double page onto A4 so my copy was incredibly small.Thanks for clearing up MOR in 21a; still not quite sure why “Jonathan” indicates American in 38a.
I agree with much of the above but did persevere to the end (with just 2D paper & some mental gymnastics), and reached the same inner & outer cubes as Hi, albeit with the faces rotated. I am so glad it wasn’t my challenge to blog!
Cheers to Hi(HoBa) and to Pl/En/Ch.
HolyGhost @7: I was puzzled by ‘Jonathan’ too. I guessed it referred to Mr Ross and spent a while trying to imagine how he would say ‘vice’, but that explanation didn’t seem very satisfactory.
Wikipedia informs me that Brother Jonathan is an iconic figure and emblem of the states of New England. That’s as close as I got.
I seem to remember assuming that the ‘Jonathan’ involved was Jonathan Swift, but I don’t remember actually confirming this in any way.
From Chambers under ‘Jonathan’ – “The people of the United States, collectively, or a typical specimen (often Brother Jonathan) (archaic)”.
Re Jonathan – Exactly Gaufrid(#11). That’s where I found it too. Perhaps I should have mentioned the source in the blog. Too late now!
For a long time I had the second Face-to-Face answer as TUTS (= piecework in Chambers – STUDENT minus DEN). Made the cube unsolvable though.
Well done HIhoba with the 3D construction. Along with others we knew it had to be SATURDAY but after lots of diagrams we gave up – no liquorice allsorts in our house! We were worried about the fact that only 8 words were given (sorry Plench – including 8 was an amazing feat) and that they could go in different directions. We had picked up on the number of As but still couldn’t sort it out.
We couldn’t parse 21ac so thanks for the blog.
Thanks Plench and Hihoba – Happy New Year to all of you.
Great fun – thanks to all! Like others, I got to SATURDAY soon after realizing there had to be two As in there, but never summoned the energy to verify the cube’s internal layout and match up the faces. Although I toyed for a while with the idea of fudging up some software to handle this, it seemed more festive to raise an appreciative seasonal glass to the IQ community. Happy New Year …
I really enjoyed this one, even the bit where I was messing around with cut-out 4×4 squares. Managed to complete it and send it off, which makes it two weeks in a row. 2015 was a fantastic year for IQ. Mind you, I’ve only been attempting it for a couple of years. Roll on 2016’s roster of fiendish cryptics ?
As the CH of plenCH and, I’m sorry to say, the one who devised the cube, can I just offer on behalf of PLoy and ENigmatist, massive and slightly guilty thanks to Hihoba for the magnificent graphics, and thanks for all the other comments too.
One painless way of constructing the cube was to focus on LarK and/or EarN, the L, K, E and N being unique and defining 4 of the 6 opposing faces including their orientations.
Of course, as many of you noted, a much more painless way was to deduce that the 8-letter SATURDAY was the missing day, as well as being Boxing Day this year, and to confirm this by jumbling the middle letters of the face-to-face solutions. After all that food and drink befuddlement, we didn’t want to be too mean to you! 🙂
A most enjoyable Xmas-time puzzle – while expecting a seasonable offering, it did take a while to cotton on to the actual theme, so many thanks to Plench for keeping me amused.
After getting BOXING DAY and a couple of the “cube” letters, I didn’t need to get involved in the 3D machinations that has been so splendidly blogged. A truly impressive production – thanks Hihoba!
Once I realised my mistake at 9D (my original entry was enure), the rest followed nicely. A good workout over Christmas thanks to plench. My experience with the endgame was similar to that of others, the 3D element looking way beyond me but the final word being easily guessable.
I must finish this short note by saying what a quite splendiferous blog, bravo Hihoba !
Having decided to give up sending Inquisitors in, on the grounds that for the price of a year’s stamps I could buy a lot of bottles of Prosecco from Tesco’s, I thought that 1417 (the Christmas Birthday one) was difficult enough to have a go. Also it might be a time when not so many people would do enter because of the Christmas festivities, so I duly sent in my entry for the first time since the regime change to Prosecco instead of Champagne. Tomorrow’s Inquisitor will show the winners – including one (George )Hi(ll)!! Amazing!
Ha! Jammy Hi. I’ve always been intrigued about whether entries go up or down with the difficulty. I have a sneaking suspicion that the harder ones actually get more entries as everyone thinks like you (and I, in the past at least) and send them in when they feel the puzzles were harder ones – not just because there might be fewer entries, but also because there is more pride involved in seeing your name on them.
What a marvelous blog hihoba!
I didn’t really get going properly on this one as I misunderstood the instructions. Now I see the solution it seems obvious of course.
Thanks hihoba and Plench.