Stats -We had a good response for “Cursory Appearances” and received 35 submissions. Of those who submitted, 17 got the full grid score of 32, but only 7 people got the maximum possible score of 37. Here’s the Solution grid.
SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS Filling the grid by trusting the numbered clues will work almost everywhere. In a couple of cases though, such trust would be misplaced. For these exceptions, the setter has (elsewhere in the grid) provided pointers to point out what needs to be done. Stare at the grid, squinting if necessary, to find the pointers. Once you’ve figured out what needs to be done, you can also fill in the first two blanks below (indicated by question marks). The third blank is supplied by Nina. The conversation that follows might be an example of another ?????? ?????? exchange, this one taking place between ???????. “Please 17 the 15!” “Please be 16!” “Hmph! 1d!?”
The solvers had to answer the following questions after solving the grid:
1. What three words fit in the Description “—— (6) —— (6) exchange, this one taking place between ——- (7)” ?
2. How has the setter pointed out in the grid what needs to be done?
The correct answers are
(1) HEATED VERBAL and SPOUSES (NINA, shown in Green in the grid above)
(2) X <—-> V. ,The double-headed arrow pointing on one end to X (from Textbook), i.e., 10 and other end to V (from Moreover), i.e., 5 indicates the exchange of 10A and 5A.
Here are the Annotations.
Across:
1 A city right inside another? That’s liveliness! (8) -A LA C(R)ITY
5 She ate dinner, somewhat warm (6) – T
9 “Brexit’s OK to dismantle.” “This is exemplary, sir!” (8) -CA – BREXITSOKTO* = TEXTBOOK SIR*
10 Brave characters fail ultimately, it is said (6) -BRAVE* (-fai)L
12 Finally got glasses as well (3) – (-go)T OO,
13 Wanting PM election rigged? (10) -PMELECTION*
15 Hot sides, perhaps (6) – &Lit HSIDES*
16 One in obvious suffering for a long time (7) -PAT(I)ENT
19 That very woman’s husband feels badly about the last affair (7) -H FEELS*<R,
21 Apprentice, we hear, is following the order properly (2,4) -HP INTERN
25 Drunk in the USA? AA putting an end to the misery! (10) -IN THE USA AA*
26 Almost sophisticated, lacks a powerful car (3) -SU(-a)V(-e)
27 Sexy quote about embracing Romeo on vacation? (6) -CITE<<R(-ome)O
28 Also one who might help with transfers involving gold and ecstasy? (8) -MOVER< OR E
30 Difficult passage of poetry in Greek (6) -T
31 Sit with legs on either side of sitar oddly and bewilder (8) -S(-i)T(-a)R ADDLE
Down:
1 Position: last (in height) (8) -A (-L+T) TITUDE
2 Uneasy is a mind occupied by the team (7) -A N(XI)OUS
3 Clear obstacle (3) -DD
4 Awkward bottom blast after sex (6) -(-blas)T HORNY
6 Immunities offered by old-fashioned nepotism (10) -EX NEPOTISM*
7 In the middle of live net broadcast about partners (7) -BE NET*<WE
8 The Reverend’s publications for women (6) -Spoonerism Dailies
11 Noble man has spoken (5) -M ORAL
14 Novel about Anne, according to Susan, strangely captivates one with love (10) -PER SUSAN*< I O
17 Neat programming language to study (not R)? (5) -C LEA(-R)N
18 The world of top utilitarians: nihilism, inebriation, and poetry (8) -U N I Verse
20 Disorder opening up in eastern city (7) -E NY (PORT<)
22 Impossible to recover totalled used van (7) -USEDVAN*
23 Find obnoxious date with online attempt (6) -D E TEST
24 It’s what you do when you do not take part (3,3) -ITS*
29 Paris-based explorers of high sea (3) -SEA*
Here is the scorecard (sorted by total and then in Alphabetical order)
The first entry was submitted by Narayan Mandyam but it was not the first all-correct entry. The first all-correct entry was the fourth entry received and it was from Supriya Mithal. The last all-correct entry was received from Ratnakar Sonthi.
Congrats to the 7 people who managed to max the score.
We requested folks to rate the puzzle on a scale of 1 (Lowest) to 10 (Highest). The puzzle got a high score of 8.4
The top 3 clues that emerged as favorites of the solvers were Persuasion with 10 votes, Patient with 8 votes and Between with 7 votes.
SETTER’s NOTES (From “Gussalufz”, Viresh Ratnakar – Added on 27th April 2019):
My first 1AC grid of 2019 (https://www.1across.org/2019/01/20/fifteen-puzzles/) had used the visual appearance of a part of the grid as an instruction to the solver. In that grid, the top-left 4×4 part and the bottom-right 4×4 part looked like “15 puzzles” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_puzzle), thereby conveying the instruction that the solver had to scramble the letters in those parts.
When I began setting the next grid, I decided to try and make this a theme for all my 1AC grids for this year. For this grid, I was playing with patterns that I could create in the grid that satisfied both these conditions: (1) The pattern had to have some cryptic semantics, i.e., it could be interpreted as an instruction, and (2) The grid had to follow the standard rules of symmetry etc.
Looking through the revision history of the spreadsheet that I used for setting, I pretty much started with the “arrow” shape. The first iteration had two additional single-sided arrows parallel to the diagonal double-sided one, and I was thinking about using them to indicate that the entire third row had to be swapped with the thirteenth row. But the resulting grid did not seem satisfactory: it had too many three-letter words, and the swapping instruction seemed vague as the two parallel single-sided arrows did not quite begin from the right place.
Once I dropped the two parallel arrows, the double-sided diagonal arrow seemed to have reasonably clear semantics, in the sense that it clearly went to-and-fro between the cells at (3,3) and (13,13). I could use it to indicate that the contents of those two cells needed to be swapped. But the grid constraints at this point meant that both (3,3) and (13,13) had to be parts of two words each, and coming up with four words that had a letter that could be swapped in just the right place, creating four valid variants, was a possibility. But I decided to do something simpler to construct (perhaps someone else can take up this challenge?).
I decided to use roman numerals in those squares, to indicate clue numbers for words that needed to be swapped. The only candidates had to be the single-lettered numbers, “i”, “v”, and “x”. Using “i” would have been ambiguous, as the grid at that point had both a 1-across and a 1-down. But adjusting the grid to ensure that there was only an across clue at both 5 and 10, and the two had the same length, was not too hard.
So, at this point, I had a grid, and I just had the letter constraints that there had to be a V or an X in two specific locations. The rest was just a regular grid-fill. I did want to add a nina word, and the theme of swapping coupled with an unfortunately depraved free-associative imagination (my favourite clue in the grid is THORNY) made me fill SPOUSES as the nina. That then suggested that the two words to be swapped could be HEATED and VERBAL, as a “heated verbal exchange” between spouses is a thing.
The title of the grid, “Cursory Appearances,” is a play on the fact that cursory appearances may not reveal the full story, as well as that the two ends of the double-sided arrow “appear” to resemble “cursors.”
Thanks for listening, and thanks for all the comments and feedback! I do have my next grid nearly ready, and it continues the visual theme for this year. It will be featured in July, I believe.
What a brilliant grid Gussalufz. I think this is the first time I have seen a “Black Nina”:) – One where the dark squares have been used to convey a message to the solvers. The end game was amazing and it was fun to solve.
Did you enjoy the puzzle? Do you have any feedback for us or for the setter. Do comment in the blog and let us know.