Inquisitor 1307: Storm Front by Jambazi

27 comments on “Inquisitor 1307: Storm Front by Jambazi”

1. A grid with only 4 unches which I feel detracted from the puzzle somewhat. Having said that, although the top half was a relatively quick fill, the bottom was much trickier due to some obscure words and clever clueing. Overall an enjoyable puzzle on a theme of which I am very fond – thanks Jambazi. However, it would have made the denouement easier if the preamble had advised the use of pencil!

   My main gripe has nothing to do with this puzzle per se but that the extra column-inches that IQ obtained when relocated from the magazine have been taken away – prohibiting Nimrod’s entertaining and informative vignettes and (I would imagine) making it hard to actually accommodate some puzzles in the space provided.

   The powers that be at the Indy obviously prefer to allocate a whole page to the weather and pad it out with arty-farty and unnecessary sketches than to give IQ a fair crack of the whip.

2. Enjoyable puzzle and good blog – I’d wondered how the rainbow would work! One thing to add is that the title ‘storm front’ refers to the sleeve’s designer, Storm Thorgerson, who died earlier this year.

   I managed to complete 99% of this myself, but needed parental input to help me over the line with a couple of missing letters. Which then ended up being blacked out of course.

3. kenmac: I just noticed that the ‘rainbow’ in the solved grid is upside down?

4. Enjoyable puzzle, although I guessed the theme before solving a clue, thanks to the title. Fans of this puzzle would also appreciate the very similar Listener 4051, Joint Wisdom by Rok.

5. An amazingly constructed grid – very few bars and we can only see 2 unchecked cells. However we didn’t think it detracted from the puzzle.

   Thankfully we saw the possibility of FLOYD fairly early on and being of a certain age we knew what we were looking for!

   Thanks Tom W for explaining the title – we forgot to look at it – probably due to our relief at having completed the puzzle.

   Thanks also to kenmac and Jambazi.

6. I have it on good authority that Boreas was absolutely blown away by your graphic. Brilliant!

7. Very enjoyable puzzle thanks Jambazi. I was left wondering though why it wasn’t done on a 13 x 13 grid.

8. Enjoyed this one. Good crossword and excellent blog! I filled the grid in, then crayoned over it in black, leaving the letters visible. I loved the RAY and IRIS references, despite the slightly misshapen prism and dodgy optics!

   Regarding 16A, I think it is OK if read as RR (JR ultimately rule) with ESSO in, giving RESSOR. Then recession = reverse the whole thing.

9. I enjoyed this too.
   I thought there might be a wider Floyd theme to be unearthed, with references to wealth (Money) and sheep (Animals) but think it was probably taxing enough getting the DSOTM album cover in place ! Rarely listen to it these days but still remember the wonder of it all on first hearing back in 6th form ….happy days.

   Thanks to Jambazi and kenmac

10. Very enjoyable puzzle.

    Unlike some others, I didn’t spot the theme till comparatively late on.

    Many thanks to J and k.

11. Thanks to kenmac for the superb blog.

    Early in April 2013, I had an idea of doing a puzzle based on the Dark Side of the Moon album cover. Prior to this, I’d only ever written one barred-grid puzzle (IQ 1257 Cover Version) — designing such grids feels a bit alien to me, hence, the paucity of unchecked cells in this grid. Anyway, I spent ages trying to fill grids (including efforts at a 13×13) and just as I was about to give in, I managed to get something that I thought was ok. I decided that before I spend hours writing clues I needed to check whether the idea was publishable. I emailed John Henderson to ask whether getting solvers to submit a completed grid in which the answers could not be read due to shading of the grid was permitted in an IQ puzzle. He replied that he didn’t have a problem with this, so, on the 15th April, I emailed kenmac to see whether he thought my grid and rough idea were decent enough for an IQ puzzle. He told me that my original instruction, formed using initial letters from superfluous words in clues, was too vague and he kindly gave me some very useful pointers to improve it. By an unfortunate coincidence, on 18th April, I found out via the Guardian website that Storm Thorgerson, the creator of the famous DSotM album cover (amongst others) had sadly passed away so I decided that this puzzle was going to become a tribute to the man. I wrote some clues and in early May sent the puzzle to Lato to test solve; at this point, I didn’t have a title for the puzzle. Lato gave me some invaluable advice to improve some clues and in the meantime I’d settled on the title Storm Front (I did toy with the idea of Storm Cover amongst others). I sent it to John H for consideration. John and his team seemed to like it and they suggested a few improvements to some clues.

    On the whole, I’m quite proud of this puzzle and I’d like to thank everyone who helped me along the way.

    For the record, the parsing of ROSSER is:

    (J)R + rev(R + ESSO). As an aside, an earlier version of this clue relied on knowing that JR stands for Jon Ross which is a bit esoteric.

    Hi of Hihoba @ 8: I don’t like this as “fodder recession” isn’t grammatically correct: the parsing needs to take the form “fodder in recession”.

    Thanks for all your comments.

    Neil/Tramp/Jambazi

12. Beautiful beautiful puzzle. As with ‘Cover Version’ this got me re-playing vinyl. I was at Wembley for the 1974 concert, banging my head and being sick from too much Hirondelle. I didn’t find it particularly easy, but ‘floyd’ became apparent quite early on.
    Amazing pictorial blog, Kenmac. And thank you to Jambazi for your contribution to my favourite crossword series.

13. Very enjoyable stuff. I was looking forward to sending a picture of the completed grid to a friend, but then completely messed it up by blacking out part of the prism. And then realising I own no coloured crayons!

    Agree on the gripes about the new location in the paper. What’s with the needless inches of white space at the top?!

14. Thanks to kenmac for the blog (I’m sure he’ll fix the inverted rainbow) and to Jambazi for a very enjoyable puzzle — I’m glad that my New Year present to myself of a £10 set of 12 ‘high quality colour pencils with soft lead’ proved so useful here.

    I agree with chesley‘s gripe @1 regarding the squeezed space, and with Ali‘s comment @13 that usage of the white space at the top could free all the bottom half of the page for these puzzles.

    And a nod to Tom W @2 for clearing up the meaning of the title, which had eluded me.

    I couldn’t help wondering which fruit Jambazi had in mind for ANA = “fruit halved” at 33a: ANAnas or banANA.

    PS Bertandjoyce @2: there are 4 unches as chesley says (not 2) – row 1 col 5 & row 4 col 1, + symmetry.

15. I endorse Jambazi’s opening comment @ 11.

    I have only been doing the Inq for a few years but I have never come across one that required such a graphic treatment of the completed grid
    So, it will be very interesting to see if the printed solution is as clearly explanatory as kenmac’s.
    (will it require 2 grids?)

16. I take full responsibility for the upside-down rainbow (I should have paid more attention in school) and it will be the same in the official solution in the paper; which will use two grids but the solution is very squashed due to lack of space.

17. Thanks HolyGhost – how did we miss the other two? We must have still been half asleep which probably explains why we normally solve crosswords last thing at night!

    Thanks Jambazi for the story behind the puzzle.

18. Jambazi at #11. Sorry I don’t follow your reference to “fodder”. I didn’t mention the word!! My solution is substantially the same as yours!

19. This is probably my all time favourite album, so the PDM when ‘FLOYD’ appeared in the extra letters was very satisfying. I spent ages cutting out little triangles of coloured paper…I hope the judges take artistic effort into account!

    I enjoyed ‘Cover Version’ too…I think the next time I see a Jambazi IQ, I’ll have a flick through my CD collection before starting…it might save a bit of time.

    I don’t know how others would rate this on the JH scale, but I found it relatively straightforward (but no less enjoyable for that). After last weeks utter defeat, I needed to restore my confidence, and this puzzle was just right for helping me do it.

    Thanks to Jambazi and Kenmac.

20. Hi @8 & @18: the ‘fodder’ in your parsing of 16a is “RESSOR” (ESSO “in” [J]R Rule) and “recession” indicates the reversal.

    Jambazi‘s point @11 is that this is ungrammatical because “recession” is a noun, and what is needed is an adverb (or adverbial phrase or clause) such as “in recession”. Hence the ‘fodder’ in his parsing is “ESSOR” (ESSO Rule) and that’s what is “in recession”, which was my reading too.

21. Hi @ 8 & @18: sorry for the confusion with the word “fodder“. When discussing parsings, people often talk of anagram(fodder) so I just used that.

    HolyGhost@20 is right: “recession” is a noun and can’t mean, in my view, “reverse the whole thing”, as you state. Furthermore, for your parsing to work, I would have had to use “A B in” meaning “B in A” and I don’t think that’s a clear enough instruction: “A B cuts”, for example, would be ok but not “A B in”. Others might disagree.

22. I have just opened my Saturday Indy to find that the printed solution tells me nothing at all! I had already completed the Xword (great fun) but failed completely to spot the theme – not a fan of Pink Floyd, I’m afraid – and hoped to be enlightened this morning. Not a thing.

    Indy – it just isn’t good enough.

23. To add to my comments (#22) – the winners aren’t published either. As that was promised 2 weeks ago, am I in a position to sue the paper?!!

24. The winners are printed as usual in my copy (including a familiar name), along with a perfectly satisfactory elucidation.

25. A bit late in the day (literally & figuratively), I note that the published grid also has RED at the bottom, unlike the album cover itself.

26. Belatedly, I have just had another look at my old vinyl of DSOTM which has an opening double cover. On the front, red is at the top, which is scientifically correct. However, the rainbow continues across the open spread inside, finally emerging on the back. Here it diverges slightly before re-entering an inverted prism and leaving as a single ray (not scientifically correct but artistically acceptable!). So, if you reorientate the back cover to match the crossword grid, red is now at the bottom. Perhaps Kenmac was looking at the back when he did his blog.

27. I don’t imagine anyone’s still looking in but at #16 Jambazi took full responsibility for the inverted rainbow. I have to agree with him because, having seen his version of the completed grid, I unashamedly took a copy of his rainbow into my animated GIF.

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