Inquisitor 1368: Off and On by Nutmeg

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Nutmeg‘s “Any other Name” came equal fourth in 2014, and her puzzles rank among my personal favourites.
 
A small grid: 11×11. One letter must be omitted from the first eight across answers, and one letter inserted into the other eight. Similarly, one letter has been omitted from the first eight across clues, and one letter inserted into the other eight. Fill in the central (barred-off) cell to show who is responsible for this, and the two unclued entries. (All grid entries are real words.)

I made heavy weather of this … didn’t really feel in the mood. So I found the puzzle quite hard, probably harder than it actually was.

Inq_1368 Solved a few, not many, on the first pass. But couldn’t enter many of the across solutions, as there were more than one way to omit or insert a letter & leave a real world. In particular, 28a TENS had a number of completions in an unchecked cell – so I figured that the omissions/insertions had to produce something meaningful in order to lead to a unique solution. With about half the clues solved, L’ALLEGRO suggested itself as the lower unclued entry but that wasn’t immediately helpful.

The following day I discovered (Google, Wikipedia) that L’ALLEGRO is a poem by Milton – still not helpful. The middle bunch of letters generated by down clues spelt …SEPAR…, but then I sorted out 16d SAMBAL. Instantly I noticed that the last 8 letters from the down clues would be PARADISE, and the Milton connection clicked: the letters of PARADISE Lost from the first 8 of each set of answers/clues, and those of PARADISE Regained by the second set. A little hunt in the incomplete grid showed that MILTON would fit running up the SW-NE diagonal, slotting O into the central (barred-off) cell.

Bottom half of the grid done, I plodded on with the rest of the top half. LYCIDAS, another poem by Milton helped, and after a last push I was done. (Never really like this much to do after cracking the theme, but there you go.) So, more a feeling of relief than achievement – it now seems clear to me that ’emotional weather’ can cloud one’s enjoyment.

A nice companion piece to #1245 from Sept-12 (about John Milton CAGE, 4’33”) and my number 2 of that year. Thanks, Nutmeg – apologies for lack of enthusiasm.

Across
No. Answer Letter lost/
regained		 Wordplay
1 SCRIMP  P CRIMP (tart up hair) after S(upermodel)
5 SECRETA  A [CREATES]*
9 AREAR  R RA< (gunners) + EAR (keen appreciation)
10 CAROUSE  A OR< (men) in CAUSE (reason)
11 DRIFT  D DR (medic) I(a) F(i)T
12 SOLDIERED  I OLDIE (pensioner) RED (angry) after S(on)
15 NIECES  S N(orthern) PIECES (men) − P (quietly)
16 SINGES  E SINGLES (match) − L(ighted), &Lit.
17 A.RIL P LIRA< (former Italian currency, dough)
18 .TILT A IT< + LT (lieutenant, officer)
23 B.IO R I (one) in BO (body odour, unpleasant air)
24 MISLE.D A SLED (winter transport) after M1 (motorway)
25 AMEN.S D cryptic definition: mass closures
26 ER.E I (retir)E (afte)R (closur)E
27 LODGE. S D(ust) in LOGE (box)
28 TE.NS E TENS(e) (under pressure)
 
Down
No. Answer Letter lost/
regained		 Wordplay
1 SALSA  P SA (sex appeal, it) around ALS(o) (too)
{def: music to skip to?}
2 CRYOLITE  A CITE (mention) around [ROYAL]* {anagram: amiss} − A
3 IAI-DO  R A1 (first-rate) + DO (party) after (sush)I
{def: armed Japanese art}
4 MIDEAST  A M(u)T(e) around IDEAS (plans)
{def: in USA eyes, Israel & Palestine}
4 SCARY  D SCARY (… Spice, aka Mel B, member of 90’s ‘girl group)
{def: tending to daunt}
6 CORD  I RECORD (minute) − RE (engineers)
{def: fastener for waisted garment}
7 RUINERS  S RUNNERS (sprinters) with I for N (indefinite number)
8 TETZEL  E TÊTE (head, French) around Z (unknown) L(atin)
13 ACID RAIN P A CI (Channel Islands, Jersey) DRAIN (where … spuds may run out)
14 UNIFIED A UNI (college) FED (agent, US sl) around I (aisle)
15 NAIL SET R AILS (isn’t doing well) around NET (grain)
16 SAMBAL A LAB (workplace) MA’S (Adam’s) all <
19 BLISS D EBLIS (devil) − E (dearth) + S(econd)
20 MÊLÉE I ELM (Tiree) around E(arl)
21 CODES S CORES (snubs) with D(uke) for R (queen)
22 LONG E N(ame) in LOG (diary)
{def: note short}
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26 comments on “Inquisitor 1368: Off and On by Nutmeg”

  1. HG, very nice to-the-point blog.
    I loved the elegant simplicity of this puzzle. By that I don’t mean it was simple to solve. Fairly hard in some ways. It was interesting that the preamble made no mention of the omitted/inserted letters having any relevance.
    I just started putting them next to the clues out of habit. Then about half way through the puzzle I spotted a sort of recurring thing – more or less at the same time that LYCIDAS leapt out.
    That obviously made it easy to spot the letters to omit/insert in remaining entries.
    I understand what you mean re ’emotional weather’.I go into IQ to shelter from all the nasty things going on outside. The only cloud is that there are two other people who live in my house and they both expect me to talk to them – for no particular reason – during the course of Saturday.
    Is it not enough I put a roof over their heads,clothes on their backs and food on the table?
    And, on no other day of the week are they remotely interested in anything I have to say.
    Anyway.Milton. I’m ashamed to say that that word always makes me think of having a new baby in the house rather than the great man himself.

    A well, time for bed.

  2. As an Inquisitor struggler with no ‘inside’ help I thoroughly enjoyed jon surdy’s comments and chuckled as I recognised so much of what he said

  4. I wondered about ‘music to skip to’ as well and I think I rationalised it to myself as skip/dance so as to limit the music to dance music. However as I type this I wonder if this could be extended to skip/dance/trip and get a (somewhat tortuous, I admit) link to tripping the light fantastic in l’Allegro. Probably not …

    I found the puzzle to be relatively straightforward once a few letters had been identified and very much appreciated the combinations of extra/missing letters in solutions/clues which I thought made the puzzle more fun than others and which led beautifully to the lost/regained PDM.
    Many thanks to Nutmeg for another lovely puzzle and to HG for the blog.

    PS I am sure that HG will want to know that my rOtring mechanical pencil has just been delivered !!!

  5. Slow progress and I was close to giving up. I only had a handful of clues and didn’t expect to see much when listing the extra/missing letters in order, but a P, R, D and I suggested paradise, the cogs started whirring and then everything fell into place – a wonderful PDM and a clever construction. Having said ‘everything fell into place’ it still took a long time to finish (which I didn’t quite, as I stupidly missed the Spice Girls reference – how could I?!) and I only completed on Friday evening, so no-one talking to me for a week.

  6. BF @4: you seem to have misinterpreted my “?” in the wordplay for 1d. I wasn’t unsure of my explanation – it’s literally part of the clue.

    V. interested in your new rOtring mechanical pencil: which model? how much? where from?

  7. I have been dipping into Paradise Lost and study notes for the poem.
    Apparently, in the first book Satan wakes up and finds himself in Hell.
    On Saturdays, a few hours after waking,one can sympathise.

  8. HG@6 My apologies for misreading your explanation. Yes indeed, the question mark is literally in the clue. Again, I am sure that I will kick myself but I can’t quite see how the definition ‘music to skip to’ can unambiguously lead to ‘salsa’ hence my wild imaginings.

    Re: pencil – rOtring 600 – £25ish – amazon. Very happy.

  9. Slightly concerned that several recent 15sq comment threads read like blatant plugs for a certain brand of pencil. Everybody seems to be suspiciously “on message” with the correctly-branded (awkward) capitalisation, too.

    Coincidence?

  10. Fairly early on, Bert noticed the possibility of a repetition of the letters lost/regained. We have little knowledge of Milton – Joyce did not enjoy having to read Paradise Lost at school so needed some googling to unearth the thematic entries.

    Saturdays are the highlight of the week as we are concerned – all because of the IQ – only the two of us so no disturbances. We have been known to joke about the fact that doing crosswords saves us having to talk to each other!

    Thanks Nutmeg and HG

  11. I enjoyed this puzzle, not too taxing but the variation in clue wordplay kept me on my toes. I got the Milton connection fairly early on, with Lycidas, and then the Paradise Lost/Regained PDM soon followed. Milton is a small village just off the A34 in Oxfordshire, I used to live nearby.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and HG.

  12. >> Coincidence ?

    No. It was an elaborate and probably unethical ruse by a non-ailing manufacturer of technical writing products to increase its market share by bribing some well-meaning but ultimately corrupt individuals to tout its products on widely read crossword, knitting and civil war reenactment fora.

    And we’d have gotten away with it if it hadn’t have been for you pesky kids !!

  13. And why are people writing ‘rOtring’? The correct way is ‘Rotring’.
    Even in the logo, the red ring doesn’t really look like a cap O.

  14. I enjoyed Nutmeg’s puzzle as I have the first two this year. I failed, fairly dismally I have to confess, on Ferret’s puzzle but finished the other two but didn’t submit them. The incentive to submit is of course for the prosecco but on its own that isn’t personally always a sufficient stimulus. This contribution was stimulated by HG’s point in the blog about the effort of finishing once the theme is cracked coupled with no real requirement to submit. Sometimes this combination provides a temptation to simply stop with the last two or three clues unsolved. I fully recognise this as a personal weakness. A Listener type approach would provide a much greater incentive but appreciate that this is far easier to say than do. Are well I guess the pleasure lies in the doing. Please forgive the ramble.

  15. @13 – seeing as we’re going off-topic. Presumably rot ring being Deutsche for red ring has something to do with the red ring at the centre of their trademark. And, throughout their web site they use rOtring – so surely they know best.

    Other brands are available.

  16. Kenmac, good point. But they would do that wouldn’t they?
    If it’s important to the branding, then logically they should use the cap O in red wherever possible.
    And if any journalist were writing an article about the company I feel sure they would use the form ‘Rotring’.
    The brand version is ugly, and looks like a mistake.
    NOTE:other light-hearted pedantic views are available.

  17. Just to add a thought. When posting anything online, tongue-in-cheek humour or banter doesn’t always come across, and in cold print can look like sarcasm or worse.I have the highest regard for fifteen squared and its community.
    And,of course for the blOggers.

  20. eXternal@18, I can see why you would defend the CamelCase but Rotring’s logo is something different as it has a cross section of a pencil instead of the O. At least I think that is what it is intended. I should imagine that there is a name for it but I know not what it is.

  23. All this because I happened to make a simple request to the editor to use paler shades when colouring cells. (Comment 2 last week.)

    And regarding the comment @18 here: the somewhat arbitrary capitalisation of an iNternal letter is not CamelCase.
    I think I should know …

  25. I know that you have said before that you don’t have the time to write the whole clues HG, but as one who often can’t get the IQ I do enjoy reading them, particularly when it’s Nutmeg who is such a terrific cluesmith.

  26. Another nice puzzle which provided some entertainment and a big grin at the PDM. I had noticed those repeating letter ‘As’ at positions 2 and 4 which set the scent for me. The parsing at 4D totally escaped me so thanks for clearing that one up HG.

    I did submit this one but am pretty sure I made (yet another) silly mistake by entering the unknown character in 8D as an X rather than the correct Z. Not sure what I was thinking there

    Thanks again for the blog and to Nutmeg for the puzzle.

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