Inquisitor 1645: Billet-doux by Eclogue
Although I've been doing cryptic crosswords for about forty years now, I've always steered clear of those "barred" or "themed" puzzles that you get in some of the weekend newspapers, like Azed in the Observer or Enigmatic Variations in the Sunday Telegraph. I'm old enough to remember the Listener crosswords when they were actually in the Listener magazine and I used to be completely awestruck by them - I used to think I was doing well if I understood the preamble! Even when I saw the solution I was usually none the wiser. (Although they did have an occasional "cross-number" variant which I successfully solved once or twice - I don't know if it still exists.)Anyway, like many others I've recently had more time on my hands than usual, and the weekend before last I decided to tackle the Inquisitor (1644) in the Saturday i newspaper. To my surprise, I found it relatively easy, perhaps because only six of the answers had to be "doctored", and so it was mostly like completing a normal cryptic until the twist at the end, which I worked out relatively quickly.
Buoyed up by this, I decided to tackle last weekend's puzzle. In some ways I wish I hadn't! I finally managed to complete it after reading the relevant thread on the Crossword Help forum, but it was still a struggle after taking all their hints into account. As there are no prizes on offer at the moment, I thought it might be OK to publish the answers but was advised not to until 12th May. I'm fairly certain they're all right but there are still a number that I don't understand properly. I've put the omitted letter(s) in bold.
Across
1. SPLICE - presumably P in "slice", but why "groom" for "slice"?
6. IPSO FACTO - very cleverly hidden in "clips of Act One". (By the way, why do barred puzzles not enumerate individual words?)
12. MACRO - "MA" for "master" and then the initials of "command running others". I assume this is an "&lit" referring to computer macros.
14. RIMOUS - "I'm" in "rouse" without the final letter. The first of many obscure words that seem to be a staple of this type of puzzle - an alternative form of "rimose", meaning "having a surface covered with cracks, fissures or crevices".
15. HOUDINI - anagram of "hid in OU". Nice!
16. NONET - "no net". I'm sure I've seen this before.
19. PRUNE - "run" in "PE".
20. PLEBE - "pleb" plus the first letter of "excoriated". Not one I'd come across before - a US term meaning "newly entered cadet or freshman".
22. THORIA - anagram of "hot air". I'd come across the element "thorium" but not this term, which is an alternative name for thorium dioxide.
23. PRESIDIA - I presume this is most of "reside" in "Pia". "Pia" is a female name meaning "devout", although I think it's a slight stretch to use "devout female" in this way. "Presidia" is the plural of "Presidium", which was the supreme ruling committee of the Soviet Union - but as there was only ever one Presidium, can it really be said to have a plural?
25. NACELLE - "cell" in "nae". Another new one for me - "a streamlined casing on the outside of an aircraft or motor vehicle".
26. SLIPS - most of "spill" backwards plus "s" for "saint".
29. RULER - "rule" plus "R".
32. GUITEAU - the first of several answers that I cribbed from the forum. It appears to be "guilt" without the "l" plus "EAU", the vehicle registration for Uganda. I hadn't heard of him and was only dimly aware of James Garfield, the US president whom he assassinated in 1881.
34. BARBEQUE - "bar" plus "qu" in "bee". I really don't like this alternative spelling of "barbecue" but it was the only one that fitted the wordplay, and was clearly needed for the border quotation.
36. THRONG - "Th" plus "wrong" without "w".
38. EMEUS - "em" plus "EU" plus "s". I thought this was an error when I first saw it but it seems to be an archaic spelling of "emus".
39. INDRI - "in" plus "DRI", but can "belonging to" really be taken as a definition of "in"? I'd never heard of this creature, which is one of the world's largest living lemurs.
40. TREMA - hidden in "theatre manager", but I really don't like "staying" as an indicator of a hidden word. Nor do I understand "opening" as the definition - I only know "tréma" as a diacritical mark used over the top of French vowels.
43. OSSIA - anagram of "Oasis". I actually did know this term, which is an old Italian word for "or", but only because I was once a musician!
44. SLAINTE - anagram of "entails". I also knew this Gaelic drinking toast - is it commonly used elsewhere?
45. DENTELLE - cribbed this straight from the forum without really understanding it. French term for "lace" which I'd never heard in English.
46. TISRI - initials of "take it slowly" plus "RI". I'd come across this month in the Hebrew calendar before but only seen it spelled "Tishri".
47. DISSENTED - "Dis" (roman name for Hades) plus "sent" plus "ed".
48. STRAYS - "R" in "stays", but why "transactions" for "R"? "R" meaning "take" (as in a doctor's prescription) is reasonably common in crosswords but I don't think I've seen it as a noun - certainly not a plural.
Down
1. SCHLEPPS - "EP" in "LP" in "sch" plus "S" for "society".
2. PROGERIA - looked this up after getting a big hint from the forum, and didn't really understand it. It's a disease that makes children age before their time.
3. BLUDE - "lud" (for "lord") inside "be". I assume it's an allusion to the old poem about "drinking the blude-red wine" but it's surely stretching things to give "Scottish claret" as a definition - the king wasn't actually drinking blood!
4. SINIC - sounds like "Cynic", which is a type of philosopher alongside its more usual definition. I'd come across the combining form "Sino-" for "Chinese" but not this adjective, although I'd heard "Sinitic".
5. CANAPE - cribbed from forum and don't think I'd have got it otherwise. "Can" is the Texan ass, "ape" is stupid.
6. INCITED - "cit" in an anagram of "dine". "Cit" is an obsolete derogatory term for a townsman which I actually guessed from the clue, but wouldn't have known otherwise.
7. SOBERING - nice anagram of "Gisborne".
8. ORIENTAL - anagram of "relation", although I'm not sure about "another" as anagram indicator. In fact I got this before 4 because I knew 4 had to be something vaguely Chinese!
9. FINES HERBES - "fine" (the French word, referring to high quality brandy) plus "sherbets" (Australian slang term for beers) minus "t" (from "tang"). I wasn't sure about this specific meaning of "fine" but guessed it anyway. I think I knew "sherbets" just from chatting to Australians!
10. CONSOLUTE - neat anagram of "lose count". Didn't previously know the word but managed to guess it.
11. OSTEAL - "OS" (oversize) plus "teal" (duck). Even with the hint on the forum I don't quite get this - "osteal" is defined as "relating to bone or the skeleton", and I don't see where the anvil comes into it.
13. CRYPTIC - I presume "cry" plus "pt" plus the initials of "in country". Is "cry" a term for a pack of hounds?
17. EMAIL - cribbed from forum. Reversal of "Liam" (an Irish form of William, apparently) plus "E" for "European".
21. ESSENTIALS - "Essen" (German city) plus anagram of "tails".
24. EPITOMISTS - "pit" (bed) plus "o" (over) plus "mist" (?rack), all inside "ES" for "El Salvador". I don't get "rack" for "mist", and the main word was new to me - apparently an archaic definition of "epitomize" was "summarize", so "they shorten" could just about be taken as a brief definition of the whole thing.
27. MAGDALEN - anagram of "lead G [for good] man", &lit. Nice clue although some might quibble about the slightly indirect anagram - it's a reference to Mary Magdalen in the Bible.
28. MURRHINE - "rum" backwards plus "Rhine". Another completely unfamiliar word, and I'm not sure if "precious material" is even a correct definition - it's listed as an adjective meaning "made of the stone or material called murrha by the Ancient Romans". As a noun (normally spelt "murrine") it means "a glass mosaic cane made by fusing together layers of coloured glass".
30. FLUENTLY - anagram of "net fully", which took me much longer than expected!
31. RESCUERS - "res" (reserve) plus "Cu" (copper) plus initials of "economic retention stock". Hadn't come across "res" this way before but it's not too unexpected.
33. LURES - "Ur" in "les" - two old crossword staples! (Think it was my first to solve.)
34. BAVINS - "av" in "bins". This word for "bundles of firewood" was completely unknown to me and it was the only clue I got wrong first time, thinking it must be "staves".
35. ANTLERED - cribbed the answer to this, although it parses easily as "ant" plus "ER" inside "led". Don't quite see "bearing weapons" as a definition though.
36. HOODED - even after reading the hints on the forum I didn't get this until nearly the end. I took "hod" for "blowpipe" on trust but why "ode" for "energy" - or have I misunderstood?
37. DRAILS - "d" (old penny) plus "rails". Didn't know the word and thought I'd made a mistake when I saw it was a term from fishing, but apparently there's a second definition of "a perforated iron projecting from the beam of a plough to which the horses are hitched".
41. MUIST - this has got to be the most obscure one of the lot, both in the wordplay and the definition. I assume it's "I" inside "must", but why does "in a frenzy" indicate "must"? The word itself is defined on Scrabble Solver as "to powder (to reduce to fine dust-like particles)", but I can't corroborate it anywhere else, and God knows where the Gorbals come into it.
42. ANGER - anagram of "enrage" without its initial "e". A neat little "&lit" clue to end with.
Quotation
I discovered from the forum that the quotation was in French, and I'm very glad I knew this as I doubt whether I'd ever have got it otherwise. To make matters worse, there appear to be multiple versions of it. The version required appears to be as follows, with the omitted words in italics:
L'absence est à l'amour ce qu'est au feu le vent - Il éteint le petit, il allume le grand.
from Histoires Amoureuses des Gaules (1665) by Bussy-Rabutin, although there are also apparently versions beginning with "la distance..." and other variations. A rough literal translation might be "absence is to love what the wind is to fire - it puts out the small and lights up the big". I have no knowledge whatsoever of the author, the work or the context - should I?
And so, at the end of it all, it appears that what I have to do is delete the letters PETIT in the middle of the fifth line and highlight the letters GRAND in the middle of the ninth. A bit of an anticlimax I'd say!
