Inquisitor 1664 - Codenames by Phi

Published in the i newspaper on 12 September 2020.

It was a pleasure to complete this puzzle, after the last one which I thought was unfairly clued in some places.  It was also the first one that I managed to complete without getting any hints at all!

The two names that were the key to the code were ESTRAGON and VLADIMIR - the main characters in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, with which I'm reasonably familiar.  By giving ROSALIND and GANYMEDE as examples, the setter neatly indicated that it was permissible for two different letters to be encoded as the same letter (not normally allowed in substitution ciphers).  So the code was:

E	S	T	R	A	G	O	N
V	L	A	D	I	M	I	R

I admired the way that the setter made each of the encoded entries a word, even though it wasn't strictly necessary.  The encoded versions of 3dn and 29dn were unfamiliar to me but when you're stuck with V representing E, your options are necessarily a bit limited, I suppose.

The three other associated names were LUCKY, POZZO and GODOT (the two other characters in the play plus the "unseen" one).  Encoded as far as possible, these became LUCKY (unchanged, at the bottom of column 12), PIZZI (start of row 5) and MIDIA (running downwards from row 3, column 10).

Queries

32ac - why "set upon" for SIC?  Or have I misunderstood the clue?

21dn - wasn't sure about this.  I initially put RESHT, the name of a port in Iran ("harbour"), but couldn't justify the wordplay.  RESET fits the wordplay better but not the definition.

29dn was a very ingenious clue but haven't I seen it before somewhere?

Definitions are in quotes, and the encoded versions of answers are in italics.

Across 

1.  BOHM - "Austrian conductor"; B[and] + OHM

4.  ECLIPSED - "concealed"; CLIPS in [f]EED

10.  POISHA - "Bangladeshi coin"; I in POSH + A

11.  BEEDI - "cigarette"; BEE + rev. of I'D

13. WARRAY - old word for "fight"; W + ARRAY

15. VEHME - old word for "courts"; HM in VEE

16.  DIAL/RATS - "that's annoying"; ARTS with the first two letters transposed

17.  PIZZICATO - "it takes some pluck"; (rev. of ZIP) + Z + I + CATO

19.  ROODS - "crosses"; O in RODS

20.  KARAITE - "follower of Scripture"; (ARAB - B) in KITE

22.  IGNITES - "lights"; N in (I + GITES)

25.  ENACT - "to perform"; (rev. of CANE) + T

27.  LYSOSOMAL - "describing digestive aids"; SO-SO in anag. of ALL MY

29.  VIAL/EATS - &lit; hidden in [teahous]E AT S[carborough]

32.  ELCHI - "ambassador"; CH in ELI

33.  STATIC - "by no means moving"; TAT in SIC

34.  IGLOO - "Northern dwelling"; I[celand] + GLOO[m]

35.  LEVIES - "taxes"; (V + I.E.) in LES

36.  REYNOLDS - "English painter"; (anag. of ONLY) in REDS

37.  DRAY - "brewery vehicle"; A in DRY

Down

1.  BOWSPRIT - "spar"; BOWS + PRI[ces] + [augus]T

2.  HORIZONTALLY - "on the level"; HO + ((ZON[e] in IT) in RALLY)

3.  MIRV/GONE - "over the hill"; [climbin]G + ONE

5.  CHYACK - "deride" (Australian); CH + YACK

6.  LAVA/STET - "restore"; T[rio] in SET

7.  IBERT - "French composer"; (B + rev. of RE) in IT

8.  SEMIDIAMETER - "some measure of the angle"; (anag. of TIMES MEDIA) + ER

9.  DILL/ROSS - "Antarctic explorer"; CROSS - C

10.  PATIO - "courtyard"; PA + (rev. of IT) + O

12.  DEALT - "divided"; L in (DEATH - H)

14.  AGIST - "regarding grazing"; A + GIST

18.  GET LUCKY - "to have good fortune"; rev. of (CULT in (Y + KEG))

21.  RESET - "harbour"(?); SE[a] in RET (=to soak hemp in water)

23.  GRIEG - "composer"; E.G. below GRI (George Rex I)

24.  SOUSED - "tired and emotional"; SO + USED

26.  CADIS - "Islamic judges" (more often spelt QADIS); DI in CAS[h]

28.  YAHOO - "wild"; (rev. of HAY) + OO ("loves")

29.  VAIR/ETON - "English town"; E to N (i.e. EFGHIJKLMN, "10 letters")

30.  MILL/GOSS - "holiday souvenirs"; GO + S + [offer]S

31.  LAID/STAR - "leading actor"; STAR[t]

 

Inquisitor 1663 - Equivalency by Eclogue

 Published in the i newspaper on 5 September 2020.

I thoroughly disliked this puzzle for several reasons, and I might not even have attempted it if I hadn't spotted SAN BERNARDINO almost straight off.  There were so many obscurities throughout the rest of the puzzle, and the endgame, that it felt more like tackling a particularly hard exam than something done for pleasure.  My feeling at the end was more one of relief than of satisfaction.

Firstly I felt that the instructions were unclear; they talked about "superfluous letters generated in wordplay", but didn't indicate whether this applied to every clue, or how many superfluous letters were included each time.  Since the previous week's puzzle (by a different setter) had explicitly specified one extra letter per clue, I proceeded on this assumption, which turned out to be right; but that was more by luck than judgement.  The preamble needs to be unambiguous every time.

I also felt there was far too much reliance on obscure words purely for the sake of it; if the answer to a clue isn't a common word, then I don't think the wordplay should rely on obscure words or definitions as well.  There are still one or two answers I'm not sure of because there was no clear way of working out the unchecked letters.  

As for the endgame, if I hadn't been given the hint that the top row was a Jewish phrase I might well not have completed the puzzle.  Nor did I recognize the "equivalency", which turned out to be LAW IS A BOTTOMLESS PIT [or] THE HISTORY OF JOHN BULL - the title of a 1712 work by John Arbuthnot, apparently.  The unclued Across entries all had some sort of connection with "law", and the unclued Down entries were all loose synonyms for "pit" minus the last (bottom) letter, although the top two were unknown to me.

Running across in order, I had SHULCHAN ARUCH (the code of Jewish law), RIOT ACT (a law that no longer exists, though people continue to "read" it), INVERSE SQUARE (not the name of an actual law, but a generic description of certain physical laws), and ROZZERS (old name for the police = "the law").  Running down the left-hand side were SCROBICUL[a] (one of the smooth areas surrounding the tubercles of a sea urchin) and ABYS[s]; and down the right, HANG[i] (a Maori method of cooking food in a pit), and DEPRESSIO[n].

As for the nine cells to be highlighted, I assumed that they were CRATERULE in column 5 - CRATE being CRATER (synonym for "pit") without the final letter, and RULE being a synonym for "law".  However, since the solution to 3 down was the word CRATER itself, this didn't seem very satisfactory to me.

Here are my attempts at trying to unpick the clues.  The redundant letters in the wordplay are underlined.

Across

8.  OWARI - OIL surrounding WAR (the "contrary" of WAR ("strife") about OIL).  Owari is a former Japanese province.

9.  SHMO - hidden in [clanni]SH MAO[ri].  "Shmo" or "schmo" is a Yiddish word for a stupid person, but I didn't see where "aged Jonathan" came into it.

12.  TRON - I suppose this is ROW ("rank") in TN for "tradename", but I didn't recognize the abbreviation.  Also I understood that a "tron" was a weighing beam used in a Scottish marketplace, rather than the marketplace itself.

14.  GORING - not sure about this.  "Running through" is the definition, and it seems that "Igor" may be a brand of banking software, giving IGOR - R ("rubles") + RING ("call").

15.  BENNES - are sesame seeds (oil producers), To understand both this clue and 33A I needed to know that a "but and ben" is a Scottish two-roomed house, with the "but" as the outer room and the "ben" as the inner one.  This gives BEN + NESS ("headland").

16.  THEO - presumably a reference to footballer Theo Walcott.  E ("European") in an anagram of OATH.

19.  COYPU - a large rodent.  COB ("swan") + Y ("unknown quantity") + rev. of UP ("in an excited state"). 

21.  STOUP - an old word for a bucket.  Presumably SO + TO + UP ("to rise"), although "so" = "well" seemed a bit doubtful.  Is it a reference to the current habit of starting sentences with "so" where one might once have started with "well"?

23.  UNDULANT FEVER - I got this from UNDU[e] (most of "excessive") + anag. of LEFT TAVERN, but I'm not sure about the definition.  Apparently it's another term for brucellosis, a gastrointestinal disease with many nasty symptoms including nausea and vomiting, but which doesn't affect the joints as far as I can tell.

26.  PEKE - either a little dog or a little word for a dog - I don't think it matters which!  Anagram of KEPT + E, although I don't recognize E for "earl".

27.  TITULE - this was horrible and I only got it after a strong hint.  I presume "Bart" is intended as an abbreviation of "baronet".  "Baronet" is a title, and "titule" is an old word for "title", it seems.  The wordplay was a bit obscure too: rev. of OUT in TILE ("baseball cap" at a stretch?)

30.  ALNAGE - it seems that both this and "ulnage" are old terms for inspection of cloth, but the wordplay sorted it out: L (Luxembourg) in MANAGE ("control", as verb).

33.  BUTS - see 15A for the definition ("Perth's outer rooms").  Initial letters of B[e] U[p] T[o] L[etting] S[outh].

34.  OLPE - obscure word for a Greek jug which I didn't know.  Anagram of PEOPLE without its initial P.

35.  NEEZE or NEESE - really not sure about this one at all.  It seems to be a variant of "sneeze" (="sudden expiration"), and the redundant letter has to be S, but I can't sort out the wordplay.

36.  SAN BERNARDINO - Californian city, anag. of BANNERS IN ROADS.  Nice clue.

Down

1.  HOISE - can't quite get this.  It's an old variant of "hoist" (="lift").  Could it be IS (="remains") in HOPE?  I don't understand "hope" for "enclosure", though.

2.  LATEN - I hadn't realized that this word for "make late" or "delay" was an actual one, although its meaning is obvious once you guess it.  Anagram of AT LINE.

3.  CRATER - it's the name of a constellation ("stars"), which I wasn't aware of.  Assuming C for "canine" (why?) gives C + RATTER ("vermin killer").

4.  HICKS - synonym of "hayseeds" in the American sense of "simple people from the country", although I got this completely wrong first time and put in COMIC, thinking of the comic strip.  C ("hundred") and K ("thousand") in THIS.

5.  ASTI - should probably have guessed that this was the town where they make the eponymous wine.  ASH + TI, "ti-tree" being an old spelling of "tea-tree".

6.  AMBO - a raised platform in an early Christian church, hence "pulpit".  I suppose it must be AME (the French word for "soul") + BO, but I don't see why BO = "man", and I didn't think French nouns were allowed in wordplay (as opposed to "le", "un" etc.).

7.  ULRICA - this comes from the wordplay, being RIC[h] ("splendid") in the initials of U[ltra] L[ight] A[ircraft].  "Ulrica" does seem to be an older spelling of the name but "Germanic female" seems a little misleading to me.  The modern German spelling "Ulrike" didn't fit the crossing letters, so I initially wrote in ULRIKA, which is the usual spelling in Swedish and probably only the one most British people have come across (Ulrika Jonsson).  It doesn't affect the rest of the puzzle, so I wonder why the alternative spelling was clued.

10.  HIGHSET - I initially wrote in HIGHEST but the crossing letters ruled it out, although it also fits the wordplay: HIGH ("drunk") + anag. of SITE.  It's an Australian term meaning "built on high stumps" (of a house), hence "pitched up".  

11.  CONGRUE - didn't like this clue at all.  It's an old word for "agree", made up of CONS ("prisoners") + GRUE ("shudder" - the root of "gruesome").  I presume that "Bard's" is an indication of Shakespearian origins, and that "in Barlinnie" indicates a Scottish word (Barlinnie being a Scottish prison), but clueing one obscure word in terms of another goes against the spirit of cryptic crosswords in my view.

12.  TROUT - not sure how to parse this.  If you take "unpleasant old meddler" as the definition then you can break it down as a reversal of TORT ("wrong" in law) + UT (Latin for "as"), but are Latin words generally allowed in isolation?  There may be another way of doing it.

13.  ENVY - not happy with this.  Shakespeare coined the phrase "green-eyed monster" in Othello to describe jealousy, which is not a synonym of "envy" as far as I'm concerned.  For the wordplay, you need the fairly obscure meaning of ENVOY (more often spelt "envoi"), a short stanza at the end of a poem (so "the final words").

16.  TERNE - a thin steel sheet coated with an alloy of lead and tin (so "a mixture of metals"), hidden in [pat]TERN RE[ader].

17.  NONPLUS - I only know this as a verb, but it can be a noun meaning "a state of bafflement or perplexity" (is that the same as "great difficulty"?).  Anagram of PYLON in a reversal of SUN, which actually confused me because the word "sun" was standing for itself!

18.  SHAKE UP - "mix", a relatively straightforward clue for once.   HAKE ("fish") in SOUP ("broth").

20.  PUPAS - can't quite get this.  Def. is "intermediate stages", and I suppose you've got a reversal of SUP ("drink") containing P, A and the redundant letter F.  Could "paf" be a Shakespearian ("Will's") term for "befuddled"?  Seems a tad unlikely, but it's the best I could do.

22.  OVUM - def. is "egg", and the wordplay seems to be JO ("beloved") + VUM (US word for "swear"), although the other bits don't seem to work right.  "Jo" occurs most famously in Robert Burns (not known to me as "Sandy"), and "vum" seems to come from New England (not Kansas).  Enlightenment required.

24.  DENTIN - an alternative spelling of the better-known "dentine" ("material in tooth").  Anag. of NODE + TIN, although the "on" in a Down clue would suggest to me that TIN should come first.

25.  FIZZER - "something excellent", although it's a bit of a damp squib if you ask me!  It's just FIZZ ("champagne") + HER ("belonging to woman").

27.  TRONA - really don't have a clue about this one.  It's a sodium carbonate compound ("chemical combination"), and the redundant letter must be N, but otherwise I'm stumped.

28.  TOZED - another baffling one.  Obsolete term for "combed" (used of wool etc.).  The best I can do is rev. of BOT + ZED, but neither "bot" = "sundowner" nor "zed" = "bar" makes any sense to me.

29.  LOREN - yet another perplexing one.  Sophia Loren of course, and I assume it's LOUR ("scowl"), but why EN for "nut"?

31.  GULE - I can only assume this is a Northern word for "marigold", but can't confirm.  It's GULLEY without its final Y.

32.  WREN - a fairly simple one to end on!  The Wrens was the nickname for the former Women's Royal Naval Service ("female sailor").  R and L ("both hands") in reversal of NEW ("fresh").

 

Inquisitor 1662 - The Return of Ulysses by Kruger

My solution to this puzzle, published in the i newspaper on 29 August 2020.  I recognized the title as one of the chapter titles from Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows before I even looked at the puzzle!

The extra letters from the wordplay spelled out CHAPTER TITLE IN GRAHAME BOOK for the Across clues, EVICT SQUATTERS FROM RESIDENCE for the Down clues.  The unclued entry was NOTUS (a name for the south wind).  The letters to be highlighted were TOAD and HALL in row 4 (location associated with the book); OSIER and SALLOW in row 12 (alternative names for the willow).  The "squatters" who had to be evicted were WEASELS, running downwards between TOAD and HALL in column 8.

Queries

47A - why "without removing"?  Surely either "without" or "removing" is needed, but not both.

51A - can't find "pink" as a definition of "chaffinch".

4D - what's the significance of "Ed"? 

8D - isn't "pasha" a military rather than a naval officer?

13D - definition appears to come from a single source (see this thread). 

 

Definition parts of clues are in quotes.  Redundant letters in the wordplay are underlined.

Across

1.  ROSEBUD - "flower-to-be"; ROSE + (CU in BD)

7.  WASSAILS - "festive occasions"; WASH + SAILS

13.  PARVENU - "upstart"; PAR[k] + AVENU[e]

15.  ITERANT - "repeating"; IT + anag. of PARENT

18.  BEAST - "animal"; AT in BEST

19.  CUTTO - "large knife"; CUT + TOE

20.  SHALLOWS - "sea not deep there"; anag. of (SHOR[e] + WALLS)

21.  TEREBRAE - "boring organs"; anag. of (ARE BETTER)

22.  RESOLE - "repair shoe"; RE + SOIL + 2nd letter of [l]E[ather]

24.  SMOG - "it makes it hard to see"; rev. of (G + TOMS)

26.  LAPSE - "to pass one degree after another"; (rev. of PAL) in LSE 

28.  HAKAM - "wise man"; HAKE + AM

31.  NESTS - "lodges"; IT in NESS

33.  SATIN - "silky fabric"; SANT[a] + IN

35.  LUG IN - "irrelevantly introduce"; [p]LUGGIN[g]

37.  WADD - "black lead"; WARD + D

39.  MEDFLY - "pest"; ME + DAFTLY - T

41.  ONCEOVER - "comprehensive survey"; anag. of (NEVER CHOOSE - S[tok]E)

42.  INSOLENT - "rude"; IN[dia] + anag. of ALSO + E + [ba]NT[er]

44.  DHOTI - "fabric"; HOT in DIM

47.  AGUED - "cold"; A + SEGUED - [sweater]S

48.  HOOSIER - "inhabitant of Fort Wayne"; HO + BOSSIER - S

49.  SALLOWY - "pale-yellowish coloured"; SAL[t] + rev. of WOOL + [sand]Y

50.  SPOONEYS - "fools"; anag. of SO-SO PEONY

51.  TENPINS - "they're in alley"; rev. of NET + PINKS

Down

2.  OAHU - "Pacific island"; HE in O + A + U

3.  EVET - "amphibian"; E[at] + V[egetation] + E[xplanation] + TV

4.  BEROBS - "steals from"; (rev. of BORE) in BIS

5.  UNBARING - "stripping"; U + N + B + CAR + IN + G[arage]

6.  DUE DATE - "pay-back time"; anag. of ([n]UTTE[r] + DEAD)

8.  AISHA - "girl"; IS in [p]ASHA

9.  SEXLESS - "not taking part in congress"; SEQ + X + LESS

10.  ARAL SEA - "once-huge lake"; A + anag. of [p]ERUSAL + A

11.  IAGO - "villain"; hidden in rev. of RIO AGAIN

12.  STASES - "periods of inactivity"; S in STATES [=former legislature]

13.  PICTS - "Steele's painted women"; TT in PICS (opp. of PICS in TT)

14.  EASEL - "frame"; [criminal]S in (EA + EEL)

16.  NEWLAID - "produced recently"; rev. of (WHEN - H) + (I in LARD) [="garnish" as verb]

17.  STROKED - "gently rubbed"; [cat]S [tha]T [pur]R [s]O [owner]S [thin]K [they'r]E [contente]D

23.  OCTAVOS - "books"; V + O + anag. of (FACTORIES - [bar]RIE)

25.  MARENGO - "Emperor's horse"; (anag. of ROME RAN) incl. G[ladiators]

27.  PSOCIDAE - "family of insects"; anag. of (I COPED + A SO)

29.  ALFONSO - "old King of Spain"; ALSO incl. (F + MON) [=Japanese family crest]

30.  MULLEIN - "shepherd's club" [name for plant]; MULL + REIN

32.  TINIEST - "most small"; anag. of ENTITIES

34.  SMITHS - "forgers"; anag. of (MISS + H[a]T[e]S)

36.  WEDELN - "swivelling movements"; hidden in OVERAWE DELINQUENTS

38.  DRILY - "in a restrained way"; R[overs] in DID + [p]L[a]Y

40.  ANGRY - "annoyed"; [r]ANGER + Y[osemite]

43.  SHOO - "go away"; SHOON [=old word for "shoes"]

45.  HELP - "assist"; CHE + LOP - O

46.  TOWN - "urban community"; TO + WEN

 

 

Inquisitor 1661 - Line Drawing by eXtent

My solution of this puzzle, first published in the i newspaper on 22 August 2020. 

The message around the outside of the grid was THINKING OUTSIDE THE GRID (starting in SW corner and proceeding clockwise).  The extra letters spelled out SOUTH EAST and NORTH.  

The nine blank cells were at positions 3, 6 and 9 in each of rows 3, 6 and 9.  The added cells were at the top and bottom of columns 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11; and at the left and right of rows 1, 3, 6, 9 and 11. 

The line I drew started in the SE corner and went diagonally up to the blank cell at row 3, column 3; then rightwards to the added cell at the end of row 3; then diagonally downwards to the added cell at the bottom of column 3; and finally straight upwards to the top of column 3. 

[Edit 7/9/20: the published solution was different from this, starting in the SE blank cell and then proceeding NW to (3,3); S to the bottom of column 3; NE to the right end of row 3; and W to the blank cell at (3,6), considered to be the "north" cell.  I prefer my solution since the line ends up at the "north" edge of the grid.]

Letters that extend beyond the printed grid are in bold.  Added spaces are represented by the # symbol.  Redundant letters in the wordplay are underlined.

Across

1.  KNEADERS - def. "manipulative people", anag. of ASKED + N + R + E

6.  SLURS - def. "insults", P for L in SPURS

9.  FUSING - def. "Act of Union", creating a commotion = FUSSING 

11.  MANIA - def. "fanaticism", ROMANIA - R

12.  NAC#RE - def. "shiny coating", hidden in LAMINA CREATES

14.  OK#API - def. "browser", OK + API

16.  AT EASE - def. whole thing, ATE + A + USE

17.  TRIBALISM - def. "group loyalty", (BALT + IS) in TRIM

19.  INC#UL#CA#TED - def. "brainwashed", anag. of CULT CAN DIE

21.  CHILDCARE - def. "responsibility for young people", L and CHAR in CHIDE

24.  VIRAGO - def. "Amazon", (RAG + O) in VIE

28.  HIT#CH - def. "couple", HIT + CH

29.  AZ#YME - def. "unleavened bread", anag. of (MAIZE - I + Y)

30.  SPORT - def. "fun", OR in SPAT

31.  PLAICE - def. "accompaniment for chips", anag. of SPECIAL

32.  TASTE - double def.

33.  EXORCIST - cryptic def.

 

Down

1.  INFANT - def. "at early developmental stage", IN + FAN + T

2.  NAS#TI#C - def. "unrelated to direction of stimulus", anag. of (ACTIONS - O)

3.  DIRE - def. "dreadful", R in DIET

4.  GENERA - def. "groups", GENERAL - L

5.  OSMOTIC - def. "associated with diffusion of fluid", M in (OS + OTIC)

6.  SAKE - def. "cause", treacherous person = SNAKE

7.  ULN#A - def. "body part", hidden in BEAUTIFUL NANNY

8.  TRAPEZE - def. "apparatus", (rev. of ART) + P + homophone of "ease"

10.  G#AL#LO#P - def. "fast pace", OP after GALL

13.  CIRCUIT - def. "way round", CI + anag. of (I + COURT)

15.  ASHTRAY - def. "receptacle", (SHUT - U) in (ARRAY)

18.  M#AL#ICE - def. "spite", LI in MACE

19.  NOVI SAD - def. "Balkan city", VISA in NOD

20.  LIGHTER - def. "one fires", BLIGHTER without first letter

22.  DIALOG - def. "Trump's speech", rev. of (GO + LAID)

23.  ENMESH - def. "catch", anag. of (HORSEMEN - OR)

25.  R#OTI - def. "sandwich", EROTIC without first & last letters

26.  ACRE - def. "division of land", ACT + RE

27.  CZAR - def. "leader" - Z in anag. of ARCH

 

 

Reply to mattd

This is a verbatim copy of a private message that I sent to user "mattd" on the Digital Spy forums in response to a forum post he'd made the previous day in the thread "News Corp to launch Times Radio". The quoted text is from mattd.

Companies invest in brands so they can lead markets and have a better chance of extracting more money from consumers - this may be making people buy KP Nuts every week, rather than similar own brands, or by being able to charge a premium for a product or service.

Agreed, although I don't like that term "extracting".  Makes it sound like a form of torture.

With The Times, you can buy it never, occasionally or all the time. You can consume a print product (sold through an intermediary like a newsagent or direct) or you can get some of a digital product free (a couple of articles or a podcast) direct from them. There's a variety of price points for sold products, but they'd like to get you on a subscription, because lots of people get used to it as a utility and don't end up unsubscribing.

OK.

If they do get bored of it, the effort to unsubscribe etc, will at least gain them a few more months of you paying.

Don't you think it's rather dishonest to take money from people for something they don't actually want?

If you're buying a paper and get bored, the money dries up straight away.

True, but it can work both ways.  For instance you might get Telegraph readers who get bored of their regular paper and one day decide to switch to the Times instead.  Casual purchases must make up a significant proportion of their income.

If a customer remains happy, likes getting the product etc, then they'll continue subscribing.

Indeed.

Brands aren't just the product. If they were I'd probably be more happy with my own brand nuts rather than KP.

A lot of people are.  I mostly buy own-brand products because they're cheaper than the branded alternative.  When you're on a low income your priorities can be rather different.

Brands imbue value to a product. Paying loads of money for a Rolex isn't just about having a good watch, it's about being a Rolex owner too. "Oh, we shop at Waitrose" is more than just "I like Waitrose products".

Yes, it means you're a terrible snob!

Generating subscribers to The Times is about encouragement.

The first lot of subscribers are partly value customers. I get the product anyway, subscribing and getting a package makes it cheaper for me.

As I mentioned earlier, this contradicts something you said further down the article.[*]  Can you clarify whether you're actually a Times subscriber or not please?

The second lot are people who get the digital product because it works for them and their life. Both these groups are the easy ones, you don't really need to sell to them - you just communicate the value.

Indeed.

The third lot are occasionals. I get the Sunday Times, sometimes the Daily, I look at articles people link to, I get annoyed that the paywall sometimes boots me out for reaching the max number of articles.

[*]This bit.

The fourth group are people who know what The Times is, are generally positive towards what it does, look at articles online/maybe listen to a podcast.

You can't look at Times articles online if you don't subscribe - the whole paper's behind a paywall.  (It's not like some others where there's a quota of free articles.)

The job for group three is pushing them over the subscription edge, the job with group four is turning them into group three and moving them down the funnel.

That makes sense - they want to get casual buyers and turn them into subscribers.  I still don't see how launching a radio station is going to make much difference though - the paper itself contains frequent ads encouraging readers to take out subscriptions.  It might make a little bit of difference, because customers will hear the ads on the radio as well as reading them in the paper.  But I think News UK is massively over-estimating the effect the station will have.

The more you know about the product, the more you feel positive towards the brand, the more it talks to you as an individual, the more likely you are to consume more Times products and then the more likely you are to subscribe.

OK.

Done well, the radio station will help Times-ify more people in group three and four. It may also even attract some new people into group 4 too.

I'm not entirely sure what "Times"-ification is.

[section on phone networks deleted]

It'll be the same for The Times. All their marketing, sponsorship, ads, events, podcasts and now the radio, are about helping to acquire customers and turn them into recurring revenue. Then the output - print, digital, events podcasts and now the radio - will be about keeping you closer to the brand to stop churn - ie unsubscribing.

Indeed.  I suppose you can argue that if Times readers have got a radio station to listen to as well as a paper to read, they're less likely to switch to another paper.

But that's still more about keeping existing customers than attracting new ones.

[section on Waitrose deleted]

Will it work? Who knows. Not all marketing is successful. The strategy though is pretty standard.

After all that, we appear to be in agreement!  You don't know if it'll work and neither do I.

A crack at a barred crossword

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! 

The 61-day perennial calendar

There have been many different proposals for reform of the calendar to simplify the relationship between dates and weekday names - notably the World Calendar proposed in 1930 - but I don't think I've seen this one before.  It has a number of unusual features which mean it'd be unlikely to be adopted in practice, but I think it's an interesting idea.

A calendar year is either 365 or 366 days long.  Our current calendar assumes 365 days as the default and inserts an extra day in leap years, but what happens if we assume 366 days as the default instead?  One advantage of 366 is that it is exactly divisible by 6, which allows the year to be divided into six identical periods of 61 days each.  (We'll see how to deal with the missing day in common years later on.)

61 days can be further divided into one month of 30 days and one month of 31 days.  Let's assume this pattern throughout the year, so that the odd months (Jan, Mar, May, Jul, Sep, Nov) are all 30 days long and the even months (Feb, Apr, Jun, Aug, Oct, Dec) are all 31 days long.  This is obviously a slight change from the current pattern, although the months August to December are unchanged.  But it's more regular than the current pattern, and there are only two possible lengths instead of four as at present.

It would also be convenient to divide this 61-day period into an exact number of weeks.  Clearly this is impossible if the weeks are all the same length, since 61 is prime.  But why not introduce variable week lengths as well as variable month lengths?  If we allow six-day weeks as well as the conventional seven-day weeks, then we can have two six-day weeks and seven seven-day weeks in each 61-day period, making a total of nine weeks (or 54 weeks in a year).  Therefore I propose omitting two Mondays in each period of nine weeks, shortening the working week to four days.

Two short weeks out of nine is a rather awkward pattern, though.  It would be rather neater if the four-day working week came round on a regular basis - let's say once every three weeks.  So I propose further that one Monday in each nine-week period should be declared a holiday.  To keep it simple, let's start each nine-week period on a Monday, and always make the first day a holiday.  This gives rise to the following pattern, with non-working days in boldface:

		Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
		1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Odd months		8	9	10	11	12	13	14
(Jan, Mar, May,		15	16	17	18	19	20	21
Jul, Sep, Nov)			22	23	24	25	26	27
		28	29	30
					1	2	3	4
Even months		5	6	7	8	9	10	11
(Feb, Apr, Jun,			12	13	14	15	16	17
Aug, Oct, Dec)		18	19	20	21	22	23	24
		25	26	27	28	29	30	31

This calendar may look strange at first, but it has some interesting properties:

• The pattern of working weeks is completely regular - one four-day week followed by two five-day weeks, all year round.  
• There are six regularly spaced three-day weekends throughout the year, with no need for any additional holidays beyond the one on the first of odd months (but see below).  In particular New Year's Day and May Day automatically become holidays in this calendar.
• The number of working days per year is 252 - more or less the same as at present when bank holidays are taken into account.
• There are always exactly 21 working days per month.
• There is a transparent relationship between the date and the weekday name.  For example, any date ending in a 2 must fall on a Tuesday or a Friday; in a 3, Wednesday or Saturday; and so on.  Apart from the holiday Mondays on the 1st of alternate months, dates ending in 1 fall on a Thursday or a Sunday.

This is a secular rather than a religious calendar, and no attempt has been made to accommodate the seven-day cycle of Christianity and other major faiths; nor does it take account of traditional holidays like Christmas and Easter.  But it would be possible to declare additional holiday Mondays if needed, creating extra four-day working weeks outside the regular cycle.  In particular, since December 25th always falls on a Monday in this calendar, it would be relatively straightforward to keep Christmas on its existing date - in fact easier than in the current calendar, where the weekday changes from one year to the next!

All the above presumes a year of 366 days, of course.  How should we deal with the three years out of four (plus years like 2100 in the Gregorian calendar) which are only 365 days long?

To avoid losing any of the dates in the year (which would cause problems with birthdays among other things), I propose combining two dates into one - perhaps the 28th and 29th of December, the last two workdays of the year.  For legal purposes, the date would change at midday, so 11.59am on Thursday 28th would be followed by 12 noon on Friday 29th.  There may be better alternatives though.

Obviously the above arrangements will take some getting used to - in particular the organizers of events that regularly take place on a Monday will have to deal with the fact that there are now only 42 Mondays per year, of which six are holidays.  On the other hand, there are now 54 weekends a year rather than 52 - surely an improvement?