14 comments on “Inquisitor 1651: Odd Situations by Kruger”

1. I didn’t spot the theme until all clues were solved, Last one in for me was 21a which with 3/4 letters unchecked and the possibility of a misprint was a bit of a sod. At that point I was a bit grumpy but once Henley in Arden clicked (I grew up nearby) I enjoyed the end-game and finished with a smile on my face.

2. Who knew? Well, anyone who’s ever been anywhere near the M42 south of Brum

3. There were some meaty clues here, giving me a feeling of relief as well as satisfaction when my grid was complete. Of the corrections to misprinted letters I had most trouble with the H and the Y – both very good clues.

   I made heavy weather of BOSS, for which there was only one crosser, but it yielded eventually. Incidentally, the clue would have worked just as well with ‘dead person’ (making ‘head person’) instead of ‘dead man’.

   In the preamble, I would have liked to know that there were 11 rather than ‘several’ clues with misprinted letters. The number is a useful check, and I cannot see that anything would have been given away.

   From the message, I got the idea that I was looking for multi-part names like ‘Henley-in-Arden’, and I filled in the first parts of names that I knew. I have to admit, though, that I didn’t think of looking for the other parts of their names until prompted by another solver. I was lucky that all my shaded names were correct, and I was pleased that all my full names were correct except for one: I had ‘Barrow-in-Furness’ instead of ‘Barrow upon Soar’.

   Many thanks to Kruger for a well-designed and well-executed theme and a good set of clues. I’m impressed by the way that all those names were incorporated – all in their appropriate places. And thanks to kenmac for an interesting blog – illustrating, incidentally, how these setters give individual solvers different things to get stuck on!

4. A spookily similar solve to yours, even down to picking exactly the same incorrect poet. Cue a day trying to make head or tale of the resulting mess until I saw the error of my ways. Most of the place names being somewhat of a mystery the end game consisted of a lot of googling that took longer than the grid fill again. All in all what I suspect should have been a straightforward solve that I made a right pig’s ear of.

5. I found this relatively straightforward and, unusually, managed to parse almost all the answers to my satisfaction. There was one exception. I do not understand the definition to 9d of “During Caesar’s hegemony, England”. Surely England (or parts of England) was not known by this term until after the Anglo-saxon invasion and therefore after the Roman occupation. In my Google searches I found that there were a number of  computer games involving the term Hegemony, but could still find no reference to Anglia. Can anyone help?

   Thanks to Kruger and Kenmac

6. Yes, I thought they called us Albion, and Anglia was a television station (plus where I grew up). Hammer Horror every Friday night.

   Lacking one letter, I failed to make sense of the cryptic message, and consequently also failed to notice the ‘mares’, ‘sands’, ‘edges’ etc., even though I had got the gist and guessed most of the places. So I felt underwhelmed, but now appreciative. I would have appreciated a better-known poet, though!

   Thanks to Kruger and Kenmac.

7. I really enjoyed this – once the penny dropped, somewhere between Henley-in-Arden and Wells-next-the-Sea, I think. A nice little geography lesson to boot! Thanks to setter and blogger.

   I took the title simply to mean that these places were all in ‘odd’ situations – i.e. under/over/in/upon/next to ‘something else’.

8. Thanks to Kenmac and Kruger.

   I had Henley-in-Arden, but without the E and spent some time trying to find misprinted E in 7 to 20 down. Eventually the missing E was found when an obscure poet called Nicholas Rowe surfaced in Wikipedia along with (as Kenmac) said, many others. This led quickly to the other places (most of which I have visited), though, like Alan B, I spent time searching for Furness.

   I spent four days in Wells-next-the-Sea last summer when held up there by bad (too windy) weather during our sailing voyage round Britain. Splendid little town.

   My only question mark was in 35a where I’m grateful for the elucidation of the clever “trouble with water” as UTI!!

   I do concur with Howard L about the definition of Anglia – known as Britannia during Caesar’s Hegemony, surely!

9. Kind souls pointed the trick out, because the penny didn’t drop, and never would have.

10. I found the gridfill quite difficult, with no help at all from the misprints, and in fact deduced the theme before resolving all the misprints.  Weston and Wells were my way in but I had it in mind that Moreton was ON the Marsh, not in it, so didn’t see that immediately.  I was then able to reverse engineer the misprints to produce Henley-in-Arden, which is only a few miles away and the scene of a very wet day’s walking not long before the lockdown.  Worth mentioning that the generous checking made completing the unclued entries relatively straightforward.  I’m another who had trouble parsing BOSS.

11. I struggled with Rowe too but tbf he was Poet Laureate so while not well-known these days that makes him famous enough IMO. Whereas it’s not clear to me what Ross anyone might have thinking of.

12. Agree that Anglia wasn’t clued well. But ( @Hihoba ) Britannia was Britain, not England. I think maybe Kruger just mistakenly assumed that a Latin name for England had to go back to Roman times.

13. And is the title just alluding to “unusual place names”? Would prefer to find something related more specifically to hyphens but can’t see it

14. Yes – the last few clues were tricky. I finished with a completed grid and felt underwhelmed. And then I read this blog … as with Neil Hunter @6 I completely missed MARS-H, THE SEA, etc, so now more impressed. Technically correct, but this has to go down as a fail for me. Thanks for another episode of kenmac vs Kruger.

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