Inquisitor 1983: Ego by Nimrod
Clues are listed in alphabetical order of their answers, which must be entered in the grids wherever they will fit. In seven clues, the wordplay leads to the answer plus a letter not to be entered in the grid; in ten others, the wordplay ignores one letter of the defined answer. One way or another, the two sets of letters identify an author. Four of the answers, belonging to only one of the two grids, are not entered conventionally; they must be highlighted, as must the corresponding cells in the other grid. One way or another, two works will be revealed. One normally clued answer may be verified in Webster’s and online.
Confession time. I didn’t actually solve this puzzle myself. My thanks go to Noctifer, Cagey and one half of Square Routes.
We were in York for the Sloggers and Betters do and, despite my best efforts along with elmac, we really didn’t get very far. So, many thanks to the three musketeers (above) for firstly solving the crossword and secondly for kindly giving me a completed copy.
This left me with a lot of reverse engineering to do and I hope what follows is a decent representation.
The subtracted letters give a forward “loop” of DOUGLAS and the added letters give a reverse “loop” of HOFSTADTER. Douglas Hofstadter was the author of I am a Strange Loop and Gödel, Escher, Bach, which can be found in the two grids.
Apologies if this blog isn’t up to its usual standards but at least I’ve learned something while writing up the blog.
Thanks again to the above trio and many thanks to Nimrod.
| Clue | Entry | +/- |
Wordplay | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clues | |||||
| Loss of willpower sadly unavoidable having left Devon (7) | ABOULIA | O |
U[n]A[v]OI[d]ABL[e] (minus letters of DEVN) anag: sadly | ||
| Extras with a department fitting implants (7) | ADDENDA | U |
A Department+DUE | ||
| Change contrasting with the puzzle’s title (5) | ALTER | The title is Ego, so if you add this answer, you get ALTER Ego | |||
| Loving family from Cremona very close to niece (7) | AMATIVE | AMATI (family of violin/cello makers from Cremona, Italy)+Very+[nic]E (close to) | |||
| Funky tetragonal bar not free! (7, 2 words) | AT LARGE | TE[r]RAG[on]ONAL (minus letter of NOT) anag:funky | |||
| Family securing a pass around Chennai? (6) | CHALAN | H |
CLAN (family) around A | ||
| Pup producer maybe settled opinion (5) | DOGMA | DOG+ MA (mother) cryptically a pup producer | |||
| Local’s loaf discovered on cycle (7) | DRUMBLE | RUMBLED (discovered) with first letter cycled to the end | |||
| It might be the Bard’s very bad bird (4) | EALE | G |
EAGLE (bird) | ||
| Base fit flood vessel with weapons, set aside for purpose (7) | EARMARK | E (base)+ARM (fit with weapons)+ARK (flood vessel) | |||
| Part of roof is going (5) | EAVES | L |
(double def) | ||
| On reflection make wicked mediaeval oath (4) | ECOD | A |
DO (make)+ACE (wicked: both slang words for good) | ||
| Corrupt central areas of ILEA greasing palms (6) | ELAEIS | [i]LE[a] [gr]EASI[ng] (central areas) anag: corrupt | |||
| Means to falsify historical land grants (5) | ENAMS | MEANS (anag: to falsify) | |||
| I doubt her mother’s welcoming (3) | ERM | hER Mother hidden: welcoming | |||
| Grey Friars periodically sin (3) | ERR | [gr]E[y f]R[ia]R[s] (periodically) | |||
| Flip Victorian wheel over cornerpiece? (7, 2 words) | GO CROOK | COG (wheel; rev: over)+ROOK | |||
| Contrived further fair for poet to run around (6) | HOKIER | R |
OK (fair) inside HIE (run, poetically) | ||
| One is going to hurt (3) | ILL | (double def) | |||
| Contemptible type reported Asian state (4) | LAOS | Sounds like LOUSE (contemptible type) | |||
| Praise for a couple in retirement (4) | LAUD | DUAL (for a couple; rev: in retirement) | |||
| “Cut”: “cat” with a change of heart! (4) | LOIN | LION (cat) with central letters swapped around | |||
| Look around what’s left of one’s facilities (3) | LOO | LO (look around)+O[ne] (left of) | |||
| Forfeited shot (5) | LOOED | S |
To lose can mean to shoot. So the past tense would be shot or LOOSED | ||
| Players in East sit ultimately facing West (7) | LUTISTS | eaST SIT ULtimately hidden: in; rev: facing west) | |||
| Spar Nuts (4) | MAST | (double def) | |||
| Firearm gunners purloined from US fur supplier (6) | MUSKET | E |
MUSK[ra]T (US fur supplier minus RA (Royal Artillery) | ||
| Head for Nagpur following watercourse there? (4) | NALA | N[aga] (head for)+A LA (following) | |||
| Practice session, one finally attended by Stokes (4) | NETS | T |
I don’t really understand this one. | ||
| Stocked up galleries send Doré what one exhibits? (7) | ODDNESS | I don’t really understand this one. | |||
| Some poetry, some poetry (3) | ODE | D |
[p]OE[try] (hidden: some) | ||
| I’m a fool in respect of keeping nothing that I like! (5, 2 words) | OH BOY | D |
D’OH (I’m a fool)+BY (in respect of) around O (nothing) | ||
| Mouths fed with a thousand pods (4) | OKRA | ORA (mouths) around K (a thousand) | |||
| They are somewhat divine birds depicted in Constables (7) | PANISCS | PCS (constables) around ANIS (birds) | |||
| Former darling returned to Glaswegian pastor (4) | PEAT | I don’t really understand this one. | |||
| Provider of starch optimal when taken at measured intervals (3) | PIA | [o]P[t]I[m]A[l] (taken at intervals) | |||
| Architect in love with priest (5) | PIANO | A |
Priest+IN+O (love) | ||
| Position adopted by diver to pierce fish (4) | PIKE | (triple definition) | |||
| Mineral type that includes your source of sulphur (7) | PYRITES | T |
PIE (type) around YR (your)+Sulphur | ||
| Classify fruit (5) | RANGE | O |
(double def) | ||
| Do cry about going (4) | SCAM | SC[re]AM (cry, minus RE (about)) | |||
| Ed’s quite special present (5) | SHERE | Special+HERE (present) | |||
| Anger Old Master (4) | SIRE | S |
IRE (anger) | ||
| As is introduction to exclusive musical exercise (7) | SOLFEGE | F |
|||
Alas, I never solved enough clues (only about half) to get started on the jigsaw, which is a shame because Hofstadter and GEB are great favourites here. I did manage ODDNESS, though, which appears (is stocked) backwards (up) in “galleries send Doré”, the whole being what the number 1 exhibits.
Thanks to Nimrod and kenmac.
Noctifer here – thanks for featuring our solve on the blog! This was a good tough challenge from Nimrod, and we were slightly lucky in that we accidentally solved most of the ‘SCAM’ grid first so were able to fill a lot of it in with lots of clues left to solve. I particularly liked the clue for ‘GO CROOK’, mainly because I’d never heard the phrase before but was able to work it out from the wordplay.
We assumed that ‘one way or another’ meant that some entries in one grid would go upwards or backwards, but I kept on being able to fill in answers normally. It wasn’t until extremely late in the day that I noticed that there are in fact four more clues than there are grid spaces, and so the answers PIA, MAST, RANGE, LOO cycle to give ‘I AM A STRANGE LOOP’.
As for the endgame, I was again lucky to have solved Gareth’s ‘Self-reverential’ in Magpie 264, which also referenced Gödel, Escher, Bach. I didn’t complete parsing DOUGLAS HOFSTADTER from the missing/extra letters until returning to the crossword last week.
I believe that NETS is just NET + S with NET having the meaning of ‘final’ from Chambers. PEAT is (TAE P)< with TAE = Scottish TO. And I think that SOLFEGE is EG 'introduced' to (i.e. brought inside) SOLE.
Got through eventually with some parsing left until the grids were filled.
NETS for me was last letters of session + one + S with the T unclued.
I couldn’t see any reason to favour left grid or right for the book titles: did I miss something?
Yep, a thorny one to be sure. I somehow managed to fill both grids and spotted how the extra words make the first loop. Then it was online searching and – bingo.
But I struggled with most of the same clues as kenmac and a couple of others so am grateful to him and KS @2 for the parsing and extra/missing letters explanations.
I’d not heard of the author or books so had the added bonus of learning something new. Thanks to Nimrod and kenmac.
In the end I was actually pleased I persisted with this as I looked at it several times and decided that it was going to be a slog. I did need some assistance with the very last bit but it all made sense in the end