Inquisitor 1979: Last Words by Chalicea
Circling the perimeter from the top left corner are what are reputed to be a person’s last words and four words identifying him. The wordplay in every clue leads to an extra letter in addition to those required by the answer. Those, read in order, reveal what he probably did say.
I’m sure I’ve said before:, “Ah, Chalicea, usually fairly gentle just what a blogger likes.” And this puzzle was, indeed nice and gentle.
A nice short preamble which was relatively easy to understand. There were lots of obscure answers but that’s often the case with these barred puzzle. However, the clues were perfectly fair with the possible exception of 25 down.
NW corner held out for ages, which made deciphering the perimeter a bit tricky but I got there in the end.
As I was solving, I was trying to keep track of the extra letters without a tremendous amount of success, whereas the perimeter was more forgiving. The perimeter message is: OH MY COUNTRY HOW I LEAVE MY COUNTRY WILLIAM PITT THE YOUNGER, which, according to ODQ, were said by some to be Mr Pitt’s LAST WORDS (the puzzle’s title.) Others reported it as “love” rather than “leave.”
However, there seems to be a consensus that his last words were as generated by the extra letters: I THINK I COULD EAT ONE OF MR BELLAMY’S VEAL PIES. Again, there are alternative versions but ODQ specifies “veal.”
It always feels weird using the word “straightforward” with these crazy puzzles but this one pretty much as straightforward as can be.
Thanks, as always, to Chalicea.
| Clue | Entry | Extra | Wordplay | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Across | |||||
| 8 Without limits green a city, or one performing again (9) | REENACTOR | I |
[g]REEN A CIT[y] (without limits)+OR | ||
| 9 For Ed to subdue little lad with endless dread (4) | ADAW | T |
TAD (little lad)+AW[e] (dread; endless) | ||
| 10 Pulverised ashen lava oddly reveals crystalline rocks (6) | ELVANS | H |
ASHEN+L[a]V[a] (oddly) anag: pulverised | ||
| 11 Removing both ends deck this cumin plant (6) | ECHIUM | I |
[d]EC[k]+[t]HI[s]+[c]UMI[n] | ||
| 13 Darned flu running amok – very disagreeable (8) | DREADFUL | N |
DARNED FLU (anag: running amok) | ||
| 15 Small cut round charm containing metallic element (6) | NIOBIC | K |
NICK (small cut)) around OBI (charm) | ||
| 17 Letters in unfinished initial inlay work (8) | INTARSIA | I |
ARS (letters: 18th letter) inside INITIA[l] (unfinished) | ||
| 18 Periods of unconsciousness all not entirely related to ruminant’s stomach (6) | OMASAL | C |
COMAS (periods of unconsciousness)+AL[l] (not entirely) | ||
| 20 Took an exam on a very high-precision positioning device (6) | SATNAV | O |
SAT (took an exam)+ON+A+Very | ||
| 21 You regularly trek miles for this small terrier (6) | YORKIE | U |
YOU+[t]R[e]K [m]I[l]E[s] | ||
| 24 Sweep mineral aggregate onto dry land (6) | ASHORE | L |
LASH (sweep)+ORE (aggregate) | ||
| 26 In a quixotic manner, unrestrainedly wandering, but not in use otherwise (8) | ERRANTLY | D |
[u]NR[es]TRA[in]EDLY (minus: I, N, U, S, E; anag: wandering) | ||
| 31 Social unit’s fine soul is primarily liberal maybe at heart (6) | FAMILY | E |
Fine+AME+I[s] (primarily]+Liberal+[ma]Y[be] (at heart) | ||
| 32 ‘A wee agent’ in a fashion gives a description of youngster (8) | TWEENAGE | A |
A WEE AGENT (anag: in a fashion) | ||
| 33 Amorous but not constant gypsy (6) | ROMANI | T |
ROMANTI[c] (minus Constant) | ||
| 34 How oath can become this loud summons (6, 2 words) | WHAT HO | O |
HOW OATH (anag: can become) | ||
| 35 Join battle, partly heading west in socks! (4) | TABI | N |
joIN BATtle (hidden: partly; rev: heading west) | ||
| 36 Macron’s memorandum to drill, including depth, with regard to water in Paris (9) | BORDEREAU | E |
BORE (drill) around Depth+RE (with regard to)+EAU (water in French) | ||
| Down | |||||
| 1 Gardening tool, the French one, primarily needed locally to protect plant roots (6, 2 words) | HELE IN | O |
HOE (gardening tool)+LE (the in French)+I (one)+N[eeded] (primarily) | ||
| 2 Yankee fan turning up on mass public transport for fliers (7) | YNAMBUS | F |
Yankee+FAN (rev: turning up)+Mass+BUS (public transport) | ||
| 3 Unrehearsed Canadian Democrat made an attempt to win (6) | CANDID | B |
CANadian+Democrat+DID (made an attempt to win) | ||
| 4 Having the same mother in Native American people, control ecstasy (7) | UTERINE | E |
UTE (Native American people)+REIN (control)+Ecstasy) | ||
| 5 Guilty people, cons let out following pardon finally (7) | NOCENTS | L |
[pardo]N (finally)+CONS LET (anag: out) | ||
| 6 Fulminate about rising communist marauder (6) | RAIDER | L |
RAIL (fulminate about)+RED (communist; rev: rising) | ||
| 7 Hospital about to roughly handle independent hook-like processes on bones (6) | HAMULI | A |
Hospital+About+MAUL (roughly handle)+Independent | ||
| 12 A few welcoming state of hostility about Indian troopers (8) | SOWARREE | M |
SOME (a few) around WAR (state of hostility)+RE (about) | ||
| 14 Bard’s character sorted out, if I’m nosey (8) | FISNOMIE | Y |
IF IM NOSEY (anag: sorted out) | ||
| 16 Animal sounds of second-rate adult donkey (4) | BAAS | S |
B (second rate)+Adult+ASS (donkey) | ||
| 19 Empty-headed comment ultimately isn’t for some people (4) | AINT | V |
VAIN (empty headed)+[commen]T (finally) | ||
| 22 Easily for poet an old line for spirit (7) | ETHANOL | E |
ETHE (easily; poetic)+AN+Old+Line | ||
| 23 Elderly woman prodigally giving out with no restraints (7, 2 words) | OLD GIRL | A |
[p]RODIGALL[y] (mius restraints; anag: giving out) | ||
| 25 Gods of marriage (not eastern) and household unknown in book of songs (7) | HYMNARY | L |
HYM[e]N (gods of marriage; minus Eastern)+LAR (household)+Y (unknown) I’m not entirely happy with this as I can’t quite justify lar=household) |
||
| 27 Freshly cover salesperson with censure (6) | REWRAP | P |
REP (salesman)+With+RAP (censure) | ||
| 28 Gutlessly idle mania, dissipated condition marked by weakness in Texas (6) | ANEMIA | I |
I[dl]E (gutlessly)+MANIA (anag: dissipated) | ||
| 29 Tropical nut sheath almost chopped (6) | CASHEW | E |
CASE (sheath)+HEW[n] (chopped; allmost) | ||
| 30 Flogged headgear, out-of-date through overuse (6) | OLD-HAT | S |
SOLD (flogged)+HAT (headgear) | ||
A fun outing thank you! But yes, quite straightforward as expected 🙂
In 25d the plural “gods” refers to marriage and household combined, one god for each.
God of marriage: HYM(E)N
God of the house / household: LAR
A welcome relief after last week’s puzzle which I could not finish (great idea though). This was no pushover, however. I found a scattering of fairly straightforward clues which gave me enough to guess COUNTRY across the top, then progress became slower, with perfectly sound wordplay but some unfamiliar words. LOI was 14D – I spent far too long looking for one of Will’s dramatis personae spelt F*SNO*I*. Then I guessed the correct spelling and found it on the internet – not a person at all so there it was in Chambers all the time! Nice one Chalicea.
I spied a likely YOUNGER and a quick scan of the remaining checked letters gave me the person’s name and took a punt at the quotation. A web search told me I was right (he said smugly) and filled me in on the story behind it.
Thanks Chalicea for an entertaining puzzle with an amusing punchline and to Kenmac for the blog.
This was a very enjoyable puzzle, making up for the previous one which I had to leave unfinished for lack of time. I made progress first in the bottom left of the grid, where I got lucky with some perimeter letters. The sequence _LL_A_P___T_E_ allowed me to think it might be William Pitt, and indeed the remaining cells up the left side had room for The Younger. Looking in my ODQ I readily found all the thematic elements referred to in the instructions.
As usual and expected, there were some new words (SOWARREE, FISNOMIE and others), but it is always satisfying to get them and learn them, even if some of them get forgotten soon afterwards.
Thanks to Chalicea and kenmac.
The sources online I saw seem to say that the ‘pies’ quote is as apocryphal as the official one?!
Fairly straightforward as others have said but I found a source for the alternative quote saying meat pies instead of veal ones, so couldn’t work out what was going on in 19dn and 25dn. Sad to say I had parsed them correctly but thought I must be wrong as that gave me V and L. Thanks for enlightenment kenmac, seems so obvious now!
Enjoyed it anyway of course. Thanks to Chalices and kenmac.