Stats – We had a fantastic response to this grid with a whopping 52 submissions, although it had been posted on a “not for competition” basis. Of those who submitted, 37 managed to complete the grid with zero errors and also get the maximum possible score of 153. Here’s the completed grid.
The following question had to be answered by the solvers..
Identify the NINA (5’1,3,3)A: WOMEN’S DAY SPL
You can access the Grid with solutions Here – Clicking Reveal ALL will show you the solutions, annotations and the answers to the bonus questions.
The Solvers who got all correct answers were Himanshu Rajurkar, Bhalchandra Pasupathy, Supriya Mithal, Sree Sree, Jyotish B, Narayanan R, Dr. Venkatesh S., Krittibas Dasgupta, Keith Williams, Arvind Ramaswamy, Suresh Dorbala, Sandhya Paruchuri, Raju Umamaheswar, Atul Jairaj, Mathiazhagan, Ananth Srinivasan, Venkatesan P, Venkatraghavan Sahasranaman, Dr. Satyen Nabar, Kishore Rao, S V Raghavan, Nilesh Parmar, Mohsin Ahmed, Debasmita Basu, Viresh Ratnakar, Shashwat, Rao Arimilli, Santha Ramachandran, Gayathri Vishwanath, Ashit Hegde, Mona Sogal, Lakshmi Prakash, Samit Kallianpur, Neville Fogarty, Madhup Tewari, Max Jackson and Vignesh Kiran. Our Hearty congratulations to all of you and commiserations to those who tried but just missed.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got a good score of 8.02. It got 6 perfect 10s. The minimum score was 5.
Top 3 Clues: The most popular clues were “NIGHTINGALE” and “DEPOSIT SLIP” with 15 votes each followed by “MIDST” and “VIOLATION” with 8 votes each.
Comments from solvers:
1. Nice grid
2. Very nice – good to see Lakshmi back as a setter
3. Good fun and comfortable solve. Mostly fair indications, a couple of minor exceptions
4. Smooth,simple and lots of fun ,we want more grids from Saral
5. Good
6. word breaks are good. please see if clue length could be shortened in some.
7. good one. simple words with neat clues, no vague words
8. Intricately designed
9. super
10. Well designed
11. Nice smooth clues
12. VERY GOOD PUZZLE; BUT SOMEWHAT EASY ONE
13. Reasonably good. I would avoid grid patterns where checked letters are almost always in the minority in answers, which should still be easily possible even with the pangram and message on two sides. Some clues are very succinct with smooth and sensible surfaces, but a few are a little too verbose or contrived. Enjoyed overall – many thanks.
14. Easy fun grid
15. Lots of clever clues!
16. Lovely clues and an enjoyable grid
17. There seems to be a problem with the clue for ERASE. That is the reason for my 6 rating. if I am wrong on my understanding the rating would move up 3 notches
18. x
19. WELL DONE LV!
20. Very Saral!
21. Good
22. None
23. Nice Puzzle
24. Enjoyed it. Not too difficult.
25. –
26. Excellent. Could not anno for 13A with the given anagram fodder
27. Nice easy grid
28. Loved this simple and elegant grid.
29. 22A Zebu is singular, I think. Zebus would be plural. Will need to check this. 3D ‘of’ is avoidable. The anag ind ‘all over the place’ is used twice in 21A and 1D which should be avoided. 1A Flying instead of Fly might be better as anag ind. Overall all fine and simple thanks.
30. excellent puzzle
31. Saral
32. Well crafted, nice pangram.
33. Lovely smooth crossword
34. Nice and smooth with a few harder ones. Keep it up Saral. Liked Brogues the best
35. Nice puzzle
36. Super
37. Good fun! “Opening email inbox” was especially lovely.
38. Comparatively easy compared to some of the other puzzles. Which is good, since I quit most of the puzzles midway when I get stuck.
39. Good
40. An enjoyable grid.
41. Interesting clues and learnt few new words
42. Yes
43. Lad – scarf still has me puzzled
44. Great First attempt
45. Simple and elegant grid.
46. Very nice easy grid
47. Awesome grid! Thoroughly enjoyed!
48. Not sure I understand the ERASE clue, as it seems to be looking for an anagram of AREA with an S inside. But then again, I might have an error! 🙂
49. Very entertaining puzzle. Shouldn’t the clue for ZEBUS have “cows” instead of “cow”?
50. Not enough room in the grid slot to put the apostrphe in the nina; added here.
51. Fun puzzle
52. Amazing clues! Thank you 🙏🏻
Hope you all enjoyed this entertaining puzzle from Saral. Thanks for taking time to solve and also give some valuable feedback. Did you like the puzzle? Please leave your comments in the blog.
What does SPL mean?