Stats -We had a fabulous response for “Brain Gym” with 40 unique submissions for the puzzle. Of those who submitted, 29 got the full grid score of 27 while a whopping number – 26 people got the maximum possible score of 31. Here’s the Solution grid.
The description of the puzzle had included “Jumble the letters that are circled to fill in the blanks of this Dickinson quote
The —– (5) is —— (5) than the — (3)”
This was a preamble to the following questions asked at the end of the puzzle..
-
- List the missing words in the hidden quote The ????? is ????? than the ??? (5,5,3)
- Annotation for 27A
The correct answers to these were
(1) BRAIN, WIDER, SKY
(2) (MAHABHARATA – H (head of His) – A T A (AsTrA frequently))* = ABRAHAM
Here are the Annotations.
Across:
1 Journalist is captivated by smart girl from Northern Europe (7) – SW(ED)ISH
5 Backside of ass made torrid, grating noise (7) – (-as)(S)+TORRID*
9 Batman’s guarding rear entrance (7) – P(ASS)AGE
10 Spooner’s cutting tool spoils case (7) – SAW+LOOT (spoils) Spooner
12 Officer can play with PGA Tour pros in primaries (5,7) – (CAN+PGATOUR + P(ros)+I(n))*
14 State’s retrospective of “Gandhiji Fasting” (4) – Rev T
15 Extremely clumsy 27’s lost after tearing off a fine piece of cloth (8) – ( C(-lums)Y+ ((-a)BRAHAM))*
18 Nestlé fires head of Nutrition, hiring head of marketing and Kraft’s number 2 cross-border trade specialist (8) – SNUGGLE (Nestle)-N+M+R
19 Empty watercourse has almost retreated and disappeared (4) – NULLAH-(ha<<<)
21 Obsessive tyrant came around, grabbing Arab girl in front (12) – CAME* << GAL+OMANI
24 Typically, after laying egg, allosaurus runs, kicking left and right (2,5) – (ALLOSAURUS-O-L-R)*
25 Getafix-like medicine man in charge gets Aadhaar number (7) – DR(UID)IC
26 Fitful Poles’ yacht turned turtle (7) – SN (Poles)+YACHT*
27 Patriarch in Mahabharata struggled after the head of his astra frequently came off (7) – (MAHABHARATA-H(is)-A(-s)T(-r)A)*
Down
2 Without introductory piece, tune becomes faint (4) – (-t)WEAK
3 Machiavellian Democrat’s authenticating documents online (9) – D+E-SIGNING
4 Nosing around to enlist (4,2) – NOSING*
6 Ruffian’s rate (8) – Reverse Anagram
7 Elite sniper holds up small picture (5) – Rev T
8 I drink in through the mouth, primarily (10) – OR(I+GIN)ALLY
11 Self-indulgent nature shorn of trust at birth, is unravelled at the end of story (9) – EPIC (story)+(NATURE-T)*
13 Actor enigmatically sent email on 6th of August – went missing (4,6) – (SENTEMAILON- augusT)*
16 A feature seen between the rims of Bogota plates and cups, maybe? (4,5) – ONE CHIN in B(-ogot)A
17 One amongst everyone at hospital conducting operation (8) – ALL(OP) ATH (semi & lit def)
20 Losing way, Brahmin turned on direction-finder (6) – (BRAHMI(-n))*
22 Mid-cap small stock, maybe? (5) -c(A)p S SET (stock)
23 Krishna’s discourse is good – Ram’s wife drops son (4) – G(-ood)+(-s)ITA
Here is the scorecard (sorted by total score and then in the order of submissions received)
Congrats Viresh for coming out on top of this leader board by being the first to submit an all-correct entry. Also, congrats to all of you who managed to “max” the score.
24 out of the 27 clues got picked at least once among the three favorite clues in the grid. The Top 3 clues, based on the number of votes were 1.”Smuggler” which got 15 votes 2. “Designing” which got 10 votes and 3. “Originally”, which also got 10 votes.
27 people rated the grid as “Excellent” and the remaining 13 rated it “Good” .
A big THANK YOU to Avtaar for this immensely enjoyable puzzle.
So, readers.. Did you enjoy the puzzle? Do comment and let us know..