Inquisitor 1367: Shortness of Clues by Schadenfreude

17 comments on “Inquisitor 1367: Shortness of Clues by Schadenfreude”

1. AN easyish puzzle but a truly stunning grid!

2. Nowhere near as fearsome as a first glance at the preamble might suggest. Quite good fun, and a good grid & blog.

   Ken, regarding 4d: if you treat Emys as the genus (rather than a member of it), then I think “terrapins” (plural) is OK – we’ve had that sort of cluing before.

   PS Note to Ed.: if you’re going to colour cells, please can you use a paler shade – I can hardly read my pencilled answers.

3. Much the similar experience and approach to this one as kenmac. The clues started to fall fairly readily, with across 14, 26, 37, 38, 40 and 41 being the first to reveal themselves along with 2, 3, 11, 21 and 34 down.

   The 26/26 structure had also been deduced, and again much like kenmac the J was the route in to realising it wasn’t all NATO phonetic related.

   An easier workout than usual from Schadenfreude and thanks to kenmac for the blog and impressive animation

4. Re HG @ 2. Just curious. Do many people still pencil in answers? I have a bog standard printer that does photocopies, so I always run off a few copies of puzzle.
   Apart from anything else, this allows me to take risks with entries, then go to a clean copy when it turns out I was on the wrong track.

5. jonsurdy@4
   Still ? I have had to stock up on pencils and ask for a pencil sharpener for Christmas solely for Inquisitor/Listener purposes !
   Many thanks to Schadenfreude for a relatively gentle start to the year with as crosswordy a crossword as I could hope for. Lovely stuff.

6. jonsurdy @4 (& BF @5): that seems a dreadful waste of paper. I am an academic by trade, and my research tools are simple – a blank sheet, a pencil, an eraser. (And, of course, something to think with.) My crossword tools are largely the same.

   BF: I have a marvellous rOtring mechanical pencil – yes it cost £25 back in 1997 but it’s been worth every penny. So the only time I need a sharpener is when my coloured pencils become too blunt. (Set of 12, Christmas present to self a couple of years back, solely for crossword highlighting purposes.)

7. I would find that hard work, pecilling and rubbing out – especially on thin newsprint.
   But yes, very crosswordy crossword, and enjoyable blog.

8. I am a writer by trade and I prefer to work pen to paper when playing with ideas. This often results in an enormous waste of paper before I get anywhere near getting down something I like. That is very like the PDM.
   In recent years I have learned to work direct to screen, but it’s not really the same. You can’t cover the table with sheets of A4 that are full of crossings out and little notes. So, sometimes I go back to the old way.
   And Rotring – marvellous products.

9. Mea culpa.
   Pencilling, not pecilling.

10. I don’t know if this is the right place to discuss this, but I am interested in how other people approach solving – their techniques etc.
    For me, working on two grids can often help me see which is the right garden path to go up. This was particularly important in the famous/infamous ‘Soprano puzzle’.More generally, cartes blanche and any puzzle involving letter clashes. Is this unsporting?

11. Like others, I found this not too taxing once the penny dropped that it wasn’t all phonetic alphabet related. For some reason, maybe having visited the country a few years ago and the use of the N for Naira solution, I put Tenge (the Kazakh currency) down for the T at first. I actually don’t know if the symbol for Tenge is T or not.

    Re solving, I tend to be a bit gung-ho with pen and the paper and usually end up doing lots of overwrites and crossing out. I’ve not bothered sending in an entry in for some time so don’t worry too much about appearance of the final grid, as long as it’s legible to me.

    Many thanks to Schadenfreude and Kenmac.

12. jonsurdy@10
    I try and cold solve much of any puzzle as I can before thinking about the grid.
    I generally just use the newspaper and a separate sheet of paper for jotting down extra/missing letters and any random ideas that I might have about the theme during the solve. Occasionally I will make a copy of the grid if it looks like a lot of grid manipulation will be required. The only exceptions are carte blanche puzzles. I used to write the answers vertically and horizontally on strips of paper and experiment with sticking them into the grid however after an unfortunate long-haired cat/warm blu tack incident Mrs BF suggested using Excel or similar as an alternative.

    HG@6 I haven’t owned a mechanical pencil for years, but now that you mention it I may well invest in some rOtring products.

13. Bert hates using pencils when solving crosswords. When we do resort to using one, when it is obvious that alterations have to be made, a good quality mechanical pencil is definitely the best.

    We have only sent the odd completed grid in so, like Rob H there are often over writes as there were in this one.

    An interesting idea for a puzzle and one which we enjoyed – we don’t think we have ever been disappointed by Schadenfreude.

    Thanks to S&B.

14. My approach is very much the same as jonsurdy@4, though I am occasionally brave and just “go for it”. Usually with terrible consequences.

15. Kenmac, apologies for going so off-topic here.
    I am going to start a thread on message board for anyone who might be interested in continuing conversation.
    Love to hear strange adventures of BF @12.

16. Very enjoyable puzzle…although I couldn’t quite solve the bottom right hand corner. Thanks to Schadenfreude, and Kenmac for clearing it up.

17. I actually finished this one, and found it really enjoyable. Many thanks, Schadenfreude!

Comments are closed.