Inquisitor 1515 A Major Restraint by Kruger

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The plan for Saturday was that I would sit quietly with the newspaper, the Inquisitor, a copy of Chambers, and a cup of tea. So exactly how did I end up spending the afternoon in a cinema watching My Little Pony: The Movie? I now know more about the world of Equestria than I think I need to, but that doesn’t exactly help with this week’s puzzle. Fast forward to Saturday evening, with the attendant background din of first Strictly and then the X Factor. I bet Mark Goodliffe never has to put up with this.

To that preamble. Ten clues with checked letters that will need to be changed to reveal elements of a set, so clashes presumably. Single letter misprints in ten others, which scrambled may or may not help. Yellow squares scrambled give another element of the aforementioned set. Write it under the grid. Seems to be a lot going on there, but what about the clues? Well, at first glance they don’t seem to be too bad, with a fair few going in before that cinema trip. An easy anagram of SEAT, a pretty well flagged item of swimwear, this is going to be a doddle, isn’t it?

Well, not quite. Three quarters filled and I grind to a halt. Lots left are clashes, and misprints, so I suspect that’s where I’m going wrong. Let’s have a look at the yellow squares, see what we can make of those. A likely looking suspect from the letters we’ve got is TEMPERANCE. First thought is the virtues – temperance, prudence, fortitude, etc. No matter how hard I stare at the grid, though, none of those clashes are going to resolve themselves into anything like that. Let’s use TEMPERANCE though as potential checking letters, and see where that gets us. And be a bit more suspicious of some of the definitions. Because they might be misprints. As the preamble was at great pains to tell us, and which I keep forgetting.

Lo and behold, enough misprints to be able to make a stab at what they might spell out. Cards? TAROT CARDS? Yes, apparently Temperance is one, and if we look at those clashes, Death is another, and Hermit, and Moon. Huzzah. Which leaves a little work to finish the grid, with Wikipedia’s handy entry on the Major Arcana, scribble Temperance under the grid, and we’re there. And all without recourse to Brewer’s, which funnily enough I don’t happen to have a copy of.

A late Halloween contender from Kruger then, and thoroughly enjoyable it was too, bringing back memories of holidays down in Tintagel and Boscastle looking through all the New Age type shops that are still fashionable down in that neck of the woods. Nonsense? Well, of course it is, but harmless enough… Until next week then, and belated fireworks from eXtent?