Inquisitor

I’m stepping into the shoes of Peter B for this blog as he has work-related problems that prevent him from spending time on this activity. Being retired I don’t, thank goodness! Most of … Read more >>

At first glance the rubric seemed pretty complicated, involving words entered normally, as anagrams and in unlocated places in the grid. A quick look at the “Unlocated” clues gave me AIT for the first … Read more >>

The preamble told us that clashes in the grid must be resolved (producing some non-words in the process) to display the name of a man of note for whom 2010 is an anniversary, … Read more >>

Midnight Saturday, guests have all gone home or gone to bed … time to pour a whisky and have a look at the crossword.  Ten unclued thematic entries (5 pairs); first letters of … Read more >>

This puzzle contained a device I’d never seen before, which, at first glance looked like it was going to prove troublesome. In the end, however, it was fairly easy-going. Each entry had to rebound off … Read more >>

Solving time: about 30 mins, except for Googling to confirm the theme. This was an easy Inquisitor puzzle, with vocabulary that wasn’t too obscure. There were four themewords clued by wordplay only, each … Read more >>

I found this pretty tricky and it took several hours over three days to complete. Some interesting words, two of which (ZARI and NIKAB) are only in the latest version of Chambers.  Google helped … Read more >>

The preamble told us that one letter or word must be removed from each clue before it can be solved.  In clue order the removals provide a quotation related to an event which … Read more >>

“Each clue yields a superfluous letter …” (alert: it might not be from the wordplay, but in the definition, or elsewhere?). These give a conundrum, three possible answers, and the initials of the … Read more >>

Inquisitor 1146 Another fairly complex preamble. In essence it says that twelve entries are not clued in the conventional way. Four of them are clued by single extra words in four clues. Further, … Read more >>

This was a fairly gentle Inquisitor (solved in under an hour) with a pleasant theme for solvers of my generation. Redundant letters provided by wordplay spelled out a “suggested title for a notional … Read more >>

Interesting theme and an entertaining solve. My first reaction was that there seemed an awful lot to keep track of in the extensive rubric! There were three types of clues, and four unclued … Read more >>

We were told that single extra letters in each clue’s wordplay spell out a quotation and its author.  Three illustrative examples (4), 36(8) and 40(8) are basic; three (9), (7) and (5) form … Read more >>

There are 13 definition-only answers, leading to thematic entries (“all reel [sic] words”).   The remaining clues each have an extra word, letters 1 & 3 of which spell a quotation; the author’s … Read more >>

The preamble tells us that redundancies have been made in 12 entries and their clues. My first thought was that we were probably looking for various standard crossword “workers” (bee, hand, ant, man, … Read more >>