Inquisitor 1666 - It's an Ill Wind by Harpy

Published in the i newspaper on 26 September 2020.

For the second time in the short period that I've been doing these puzzles, I managed to guess the theme before looking at the puzzle!  I can't say that it made solving it any easier though, and in fact even after solving the whole thing I still have a strange niggling feeling that I've missed something somewhere. 

The puzzle number was 1666, which instantly made me think of The Great Fire of London, which famously took place in that year.  (Puzzle 1660, which I didn't attempt, related to the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, so I was on the lookout for that sort of device.)  The references to "a dated map",  "progress across the thematic part of the map" and "start and end locations" fitted in with that idea, as did the puzzle's title, although it took me a while to work out exactly what the various parts of the map represented.

I was a little confused by the instruction that "in 13 down clues, a letter must be moved left, creating new word(s) before solving".  I wasn't sure whether "moved left" meant "moved one place to the left" or "moved an arbitrary distance to the left"; as it turned out, it was the latter.  There was also no indication that these were the first thirteen down clues, which would have been slightly clearer; whether this was left out deliberately I'm not sure, but it did seem to make things unnecessarily difficult.

More worryingly, there was no indication that a space needed to be inserted before the last letter of five Down clues (19, 28, 30, 33, 35), in order to create the "line of 7 empty cells" specified in the preamble.  This looks like an error, as I can't see any way in which solvers might be expected to deduce this; I only found out about it after getting a hint from elsewhere.

My completed grid looked like this:

R

I

B

B

O

N

B

U

I

L

D

I

N

G

I

F

R

U

R

U

R

D

N

O

I

N

L

U

N

I

O

P

G

N

O

O

R

D

K

B

I

N

G

N

O

R

Y

B

W

W

O

R

K

O

N

D

L

N

O

I

N

O

N

I

N

L

O

R

L

O

U

I

L

G

Y

X

I

N

D

I

P

N

I

G

S

S

T

H

E

M

E

T

E

M

M

E

T

S

T

H

E

T

A

A

T

E

A

S

E

S

H

E

F

I

N

I

R

R

O

R

U

N

R

I

G

D

U

W

D

N

M

D

C

L

X

V

I

I

N

G

L

I

N

G

Y

Y

O

Y

O

B

L

O

W

Y

The area in red is presumably intended to be an outline map of the City of London, with the two italicized P's indicating Pudding Lane and Pye Corner, the start and end points of the Great Fire.  The two lines in blue represent the River Thames (containing only the letters T, H, A, M, E and S).  

The seven empty cells in the next-to-last line of the grid are filled with the letters MDCLXVI (in bold above), the Roman representation of the date 1666, notable for containing each numeral once and only once in descending order.  This gives the six extra unclued words ARMY, MARDY, TOCO, WINTERLY, RONDEAUX and MERIL (the V doesn't contribute to a word).

The moved letters in the thirteen Down clues spell out GEORGIE PORGIE, a 19th-century children's rhyme with no obvious connection to the Great Fire of London beyond the line "pudding and pie" (suggesting Pudding Lane and Pye Corner).  I'd been given the hint to look for a children's rhyme and was expecting "London's Burning"!

The instruction "answers to some across clues must be modified before entry" appeared to mean that within the red area (where the fire took hold), solutions should be entered right to left; for example NINGPO (14 across) appears as NIOPGN because the first two letters (NI) are outside the red area and the rest (NGPO) is inside.  I presume this is meant to symbolize the fire's progress across the City from east to west, helped by a strong East wind (hence the puzzle's title).

The distribution of letters across the grid is somewhat strange, with a preponderance of particular letters in certain rows (e.g. N in row 5).  It may be significant that, apart from the unavoidable M at the start of the date, none of the letters of THAMES appear anywhere outside the two rows representing the river, although there's no reason given in the preamble why this should be so.  

The absence of some of the commonest letters in English from the rest of the grid may have restricted the choice of words somewhat.  Combined with the partial reversal of words and the lack of bars, the result is that much of the completed grid ended up looking like gibberish, intentionally or otherwise.  There may be some other significance to the arrangement of letters that I haven't grasped; hints of WIND and WOODWORK in the red area perhaps?

Solutions to clues follow, with the modified versions of Across solutions in italics.  For the thirteen special Down clues, I've rewritten the clue with the moved letter in bold, and a # symbol where the letter was moved from.  The abbreviation is at 12ac (United Nations Disaster Relief Organization).

Queries and comments

1ac: I can't find any references to RIBBON BUILDING but took it as a synonym for the usual term  "ribbon development".

26ac: is "gone" the anagram indicator?  I assume so.

37ac: clearly clued but the solution is in French - is this legitimate? 

40ac: what's the significance of "for year"?

2dn: can't work out why "Skye's appearance" = BROO.  "Broo" is a Scottish word, for either "broth" or "brow" or "the dole", but I wouldn't say the Isle of Skye looked like any of those.  I tried to put the migrant E somewhere else but nothing seemed to fit.

5dn: Am I right here?  UDO is an edible Japanese plant, and a "kin" is a Japanese unit of weight (about 600g).  I can't see any other justification for the definition.

6dn: can't parse unless DOL = "sweet", which I can't find anywhere.

7dn: modified clue would suggest KOP = "Cape's dun" (or "Cap's dune").  KOP is a South African word meaning "hill", so "Cape's dune" might work, but then where does the E move from?

Across

1.  RIBBON BUILDING = "unplanned growth"; anag. of (IN + O + BUBBL[e]) in RIDING

12.  URDNO/UNDRO = "former relief body"; anag. of ROUND

14.  NIOPGN/NINGPO = "battle in China"; hidden in [clea]NING PO[lluted]

15.  OORDK/DROOK = "Glaswegian soak"; DR + O[rders] + OK

17.  BIN = "where rubbish is put"; BINGO - GO

18.  GNORY/GYRON = [heraldic] "charge"; anag. of GRY[ph]ON[s]

20.  ORKON/KROON = "sent 100 times" (Estonian currency): KROO + N

21.  LNOI/LION = "this brave one"; makes GANGLION after GANG

22.  NONIN/NINON = "flimsy material"; N + IN ON

23.  LORLO/ROLLO = "first Duke of Normandy"; ROLL + O

24.  UILG/UGLI = "hybrid"; G + L in U[n]I[t]

26.  IP NIG/IN PIG = "what a pregnant sow is"; anag. of [gras]PING + I

27.  THEME = "what Inquisitor features"; THE + ME

29.  EMMETS = "SW tourists"; rev. of STEMME[d]

32.  THETA = "letter"; anag. of [m]ATTHE[w]

34.  AT EASE = "free from anxiety"; hidden in [celebr]AT E AS E[veryone]

36.  SHE = "novel queen"; H (hearts) between S and E (South and East)

37.  FINI = "over in France"; FIN + I

39.  RUNRIG = "system of tenure at St Andrews"; R + UNRIG

40.  JOG = "stimulate"; JO (delight) + G (good)

41.  LINGY = "like [h]eather"; CLINGY - C

42.  YOYO = "fool"; YO[u] x 2

43.  BLOWY = "with the wind up"; LOW in B[o]Y

Down

1.  Make a ding in a #round 

RING = "make a ding"; also = "in a round" (double def.)

2.  Skye's appearance has brother getting blotto at l#ast

BROO = "Skye's appearance" (?) ; BRO + [blott]O

3.  Loose party of soldiers with Germany's central unit c#asting away

ORGY = "loose party"; OR + G[erman]Y

4.  Victorian brea#d O'Brien soused with whiskey

BROWNIE = "Victorian bread"; anag. of (OBRIEN + W)

5.  Our king's house once stripped - it might be bought by the kin#

UDO = "it might be bought by the kin"; [t]UDO[r]

6.  Retir#ed sweet statistical measure

LOD = "statistical measure" (logarithm of odds); rev. of DOL (?)

7.  With little one climbing the Cape's dun# to stone curlew

DIKKOP = "stone curlew"; (rev. of KID) + KOP (= Cape's dun?)

8.  Pluck getting #up in hotel - it's natural

INBORN = "natural"; rev. of ROB in INN

9.  Pointer perhaps going at boundaries?  To# open in that cover

GUN DOG = "pointer perhaps"; UNDO in G[oin]G

10.  Forssa's tongue is perfect to the #ear

FINNISH = "Forssa's tongue" (town in Finland); homophone of FINISH

11.  Switch sides in making ceiling glow, getting #rid of tilted parts

UPRIGHTING = "getting rid of tilted parts"; R for L in UPLIGHTING

12.  Extract from crate's unit#ed atop new wood

UNBOX = "extract from crate"; U + N + BOX

13.  Gael#'s close by lough - go with cycles in this toun

LINLITHGOW = "this toun"; [gae]L + IN + L + permutation of GO WITH

16.  RONDEAU = "poem"; R[ave] + O + anag. of AUDEN

19.  WINTERY = "of the season"; WIN + TE[r]RY

21.  LUSTFUL = "longing for it"; anag. of (TRUSTFULLY - TRY)

27.  TEND = "take care of"; T + END

28.  MARY = "Shelley possibly"; MARRY - R

30.  MERL = "Rabbie's blackbird"; MERLIN - IN

31.  SEDGY = "not like grass but similar"; S[kunk] + EDGY

33.  ARY = "one unspecified"; PRIMARY - PRIM

35.  TOO = "in addition"; homophone of TWO (a number)

36.  SIJO = "Korean poetry"; (rev. of EMOJIS) - ME

38.  IWI = "his [i.e. New Zealand] tribe"; [k]IWI