Inquisitor 1927: Line Management by Phi

10 comments on “Inquisitor 1927: Line Management by Phi”

1. 

   Rob T

   #1 - Tue 7th Oct 25, 10:18

   
   

   For the first time I correctly guessed a theme based purely on the title and the preamble, aided by a commemorative newspaper article I happened to read shortly before starting the puzzle. But I think that made the actual puzzle only slightly easier to solve! There was still plenty to chew on in the clues. I spent a little while assuming that EAGLES/CLIFFE was AY/CLIFFE though. The choice of words generated by extra letters seemed a little… arbitrary? Not sure that particular device added very much. But I very much enjoyed the puzzle, thanks to Phi and kenmac.

2. 

   Alan B

   #2 - Tue 7th Oct 25, 10:33

   
   

   As the preamble pointed out, the date was spot on for this bicentenary. I realised what it was about when I had LOCO… at 4a, having seen a news item on the subject on that day. A T and an N in the other name suggested STEPHENSON, and my progress in this quite tough puzzle was helped by these leads. Darlington and Stockton were my first two clashes – in fact I was positively expecting a STOCK/TON clash having got DAR/LINGTON. The other three were less predictable and came more naturally from solving the clues.

   An enjoyable puzzle with what was for me an interesting and worthy theme, and with a very good set of clues.

   Thanks to both Phi and Ken.

3. 

   Sagittarius

   #3 - Tue 7th Oct 25, 17:33

   
   

   I’d seen a lot about the railway centenary in the days leading up to publication of this puzzle, and the theme came as no surprise, with LOCOMOTION and STEVENSON being deducible early. The four connections were more of a bother, because I thought they might not be railway-linked, and I feared I was going totally off the rails as the letters of CHITTAPRAT began to emerge, but all ultimately made sense. I couldn’t parse ITEMS either, and still can’t – TEMS may mean a riddle in some dictionary or other, but I couldn’t find it in Chambers. I wouldn’t instinctively have linked OMERTA with old Chicago rather than Sicily, and leaving the 5 cells blank feels odd after going to the trouble of working out what ought to go in them. However, compilers have their own logics on this sort of thing. As usual, thanks to Phi and Ken.

4. 

   Rob T

   #4 - Tue 7th Oct 25, 18:14

   
   

   Sagittarius @3 – having had a little experience of having an IQ puzzle laid out for print, my instinctive assumption on the ‘blank cells’ thing was purely that for the solution, printed as small as it is, having e.g. DAR/LINGTON and EAGLES/CLIFFE in individual cells would be a bit of an ‘eye test’ 😁 and erasing them avoids the problem!

5. 

   Alan B

   #5 - Tue 7th Oct 25, 18:22

   
   

   Sagittarius @3
   I too entered ITEMS without having fully understood it at the time. However, (1) ‘tems’ is in Chambers as a dialectal word for ‘sieve’ and (2) I now see ‘offered by some local’ as a phrase indicating the dialectal use. The full unmodified answer is therefore IT+TEMS (making ITEMS after removing the extra T).

6. 

   arnold

   #6 - Tue 7th Oct 25, 18:39

   
   

   A fun puzzle although did the reference to “today’s date” make it a little too easy to figure out the theme?

   The extra letters were certainly a struggle given the words were very difficult to guess, but I suppose that was part of the challenge and reading the full back-story (including the odd naming conventions) was fascinating!

   As a quick aside I’ve never seen a ‘choice of entry length’ before such as “6 or 6 (2 words)” in 4d, but I suppose why not if it covers all eventualities.

   Thanks to phi and kenmac for an enjoyable and instructive time.

7. 

   Sagittarius

   #7 - Tue 7th Oct 25, 19:07

   
   

   Thanks Alan B. It sometimes happens that a word that I have several times searched for in vain in the dictionary, feeling that it must be there, suddenly appears when I look one more time with determination, and so it has been with TEMS. One of life’s little mysteries.

8. 

   Phi

   #8 - Tue 7th Oct 25, 20:01

   
   

   Missed putting it up last night, but the usual setter’s blog is at: https://phionline.net.nz/setters-blogs/line-management/

9. 

   Jon MacToon

   #9 - Wed 8th Oct 25, 10:02

   
   

   This was a lot of fun to solve, and although LOCOMOTION and STEPHENSON came up pretty quickly there was still a lot of track to lay down before reaching the final destination. I did spend a while trying to get Stockton into the top left hand corner, not realising until Wiki put me right that what I had always thought of as the Stockton to Darlington railway actually started at Shildon. As with all the best IQs I learned some new stuff and not just new words (I particularly like AGMA and PARGE), so thanks to Phi for an ingenious and informative challenge. 10/10 this week, so for once Ken’s helpful blog is confirmatory rather than elucidatory.

10. 

    Dave W

    #10 - Fri 10th Oct 25, 13:24

    
    

    I started this one late and only finished it yesterday, so apologies for the tardy comment.
    I made quite a good start and soon saw LOCOMOTION staring at me at 4A with a likely STEPHENSON at 40A. After that, things got rather more difficult, as already observed. As the structure was fairly complex, I thought it was a bit cruel of Phi to make some of the wordplay so obscure. I had not met cheese=excellent thing or wait=carolsinger (although my wife knew the latter).
    I think Rob T @1 must have found the same old map as me, which does not show Eaglescliffe at all but does show Aycliffe, which is perplexingly in the wrong place. As I understand it, the name was not adopted until 1852, well after the historic event. Just like Bristol, it is a railways mis-spelling of a local name, in this case, the nearby village of Egglescliffe. Having completed the puzzle sucessfully, I then found a more recent map which only showed the five locations required.
    Thanks to Phi for an ingenious puzzle, a bit of a struggle but ultimately enjoyable and satisfying, and, of course, to Ken.

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