Inquisitor 82 GIVE AND TAKE by Lato

by

 Loved this puzzle! Great stuff from Lato.

I (HI) can’t take much credit for solving it though. A weekend’s windsurfing left me exhausted physically and in no state mentally to tackle some very tricky clues. Fortunately HO and BA were on form and solved the clues. After a bit of collaboration we sorted out the “Thematic” words. The final strokes of genius came from a friend who said “it can’t be as simple as ‘Chas and Dave’ can it?” and I spotted that CHAD and SAVE could be converted into the aforementioned singers by a simple letter transposition – hence the title GIVE and TAKE. My wife armed with this information looked at the list of thematic words and said “POSH and BECKS” and proceded to solve the pairs!

So how did it work? The Thematic words were:

 PECKS  Jerks 
 LONERS  Antisocial types
 HIKE  Increase
 SEED  Origin
 SAVE  unclued
 BASH  Party
 MINK  Small animal
 WIND  Sheep disease
 SIMPLON  Pass
 GASTON  French boy
 CHAD  unclued
 EINE  Eyes
 HOLEY  Pitted
 BOSH  Nonsense
 SOVS  Short money
 MANGERS  Cribs
   

Pairing them after shifting a letter from one to the other we get:

 POSH &  BECKS   Celebrities
 BANGERS  &  MASH   Food
 WINE &  DINE  Entertain
 MILK &  HONEY   Plenty
 HIDE &  SEEK   Game
 SONS &  LOVERS  Novel
 GALTON &  SIMPSON  Scriptwriters
 CHAS &  DAVE   Singers
   

Solving time : Can’t really estimate it – see above!

The “normal” clues have the extra words indicated in bold.

Across
 5  BOMB – BO (Guy) + MB
 7  TSAR (Entertain) – T(he) + RAS reversed 
 10  CONTOS – [NO COST]*
 11  ZOLA (Food) – ZO (ther trusty old cross again!) + LA (indeed)
 12  ENLIVEN – NEVIL(L)E (Man U player L(eft) out!!) with N inserted – what a cracker!
 14  LYDD – Yes it is a London airport – [L(a)DY]* + D(ay)
 15  RACY – RAY round C(lubs)
 16  MEEKEN – MEN round EKE (also or supplement)
 18  TREATED is “Bought drink for”, TREE (corner) round AT (=1/100 of a kip in Laos!) + D(aughter)
 19  STASH – ST (= sh!) + ASH (remains)
 24  ELECTRA – EL (Chicago’s local railway) + [TRACE]*
 28  MISSEE – MISS + E + E
 30  PHEW – sounds like FEW
 34  AERO (Plenty) – chocolate bar and planes 
 36  ISMS (Game) – [MISS]*
 37  GUTTAE – are drops, GUTTA (percha) was used for making golf balls + E(arth)
Down
 1  PELHAMS – a “bit” for a horse, [SAMPLE]* + H(enry)
 2  CONK – CON + (loc)K
 3  KNEED – Love “jointly attacked” as a definition! – sounds like KNEAD
 4  STRIDES – [DRESS IT]*
 6  BOLIDE – a meteor that creates a fireball, [BOILED]*
 8  ALERCE – [CLEAR]* + E(arl)
 9  RANGY – RANG + Y(ard)
 12  EVET – another form of EFT, EVE(n)T
 13  GRABS (Novel) – GABS round R(ector)
 14  LEA – a measure of worsted – hidden in pleased
 17  KECKS – double meaning, loathe and trousers (strides)
 20  TRIPOLI – capital of Libya, TRI(m) + POLI(ce) = 2/3 of force!!
 21  HIP BATH – HIP (trendy) + BATH (place)
 22  SEW (Scriptwriters) – WES (Craven) reversed
 23  HERONRY – HERO + [R(a)N(d)Y]*
 25  LINISH – to smooth, L(ecturer) + (F)INISH
 26  TWELVE – cardinal number, TV (set) round WEL(L) + E. Another cracker!!
 27  ANON – coming, AN (one) +ON (leg)
 29  MUSIC – maybe folk music, MUS(e) + I (one) + C (about)
 31  HAS TO – [OATHS]*
 32  EMMA (Singers) – (G)EMMA, two girl’s names
 33  AGUE – fit, (v)AGUE
 35  ET AL (Celebrities) – LATE (dead) reversed

5 comments on “Inquisitor 82 GIVE AND TAKE by Lato”

  1. This one defeated me. I solved all the clues and most of the thematics but didn’t see the final step of transposing letters.
    The Inquisitor is often harder than the Listener these days.

  2. I enjoyed this once the final penny dropped, though I never did stop long enough to work out MILK AND HONEY. I agree with Richard that the Inquisitor has generally got harder and I don’t always find time for it. Any Quixote puzzles though are likely to stay on the easier side, trying to fill the gap between the daily and the hard thematic.

  3. Yes, this was a cracking puzzle – did not find it quite as hard as some others. Thought it was going to be quite fast when I got the first four pairs – thought then that the letter always moved from the same position in the word, but of course it didn’t.

    The bottom half of the grid was quite tough.

    ‘Sheep disease’ I found by far the hardest of the thematic words

  4. I agree that Inquisitor puzzles are getting more difficult. I have no objection to this trend, and the “puzzle” element – as against the “crossword” element is generally very entertaining and informative. Access to the internet inevitably means that, with information easy to search for, the puzzles will get trickier. My problem is that, often, it is possible to solve the crossword section and enter the crossword for the prize without actually completing the solution. This one was another case of this trend. You didn’t have to complete the pairs to enter! My previous blog on 76 (The Balloonatic) was similar.

Comments are closed.