Stats The puzzle page was loaded 461 times. 257 visitors had a go at it and 52 solvers managed to complete and submit the grid. Of those who submitted 33 managed to get the maximum possible score of 150 including the Bonus.
Auld Lang Syne<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
Bonus Question:
Using the circled letters find the 3 word phrase that connects to the title (5,3,4) – ANS: HAPPY NEW YEAR
Annotations
| Across | Answers | Explanations |
| 8 In the end, hot meal is progress (8) | FLOURISH | Charade FLOUR IS H. Meal=flour, position indicator= in the end, Hot=h, Def: Progress |
| 9 Will that man remain in top? (6) | BEHEST | Container BE(HE)ST. Container indicator=remain in, Def: Will |
| 10 Fuel carrier that might help a car to move forward (8) | CYLINDER | DD |
| 11 Old revue new creation (6) | OEUVRE | Partial Anagram O REVUE* Anagrind= new Def: Creation |
| 12 Doctor cared about learner giving shelter (6) | CRADLE | Partial Anagram CARED* around L, Def: Shelter |
| 13 Dismissing finally just about 500 working for military unit (8) | SQUADRON | Just=Square, 500=D, dismissing finally=removal of last letter, working=on, SQUA(D)R ON. Def: Military unit |
| 15 Shattering, possibly after another time is contrary to expectation (7,3,5) | AGAINST THE GRAIN | Partial anagram, AGAIN SHATTERING* Anagrind: possibly, Another time=again Def: contrary to what is expected |
| 18 Celebrity’s trendy vehicle, that can be out of the world (8) | STARSHIP | Charade Def: vehicle that can be out of the world, STAR’S HIP |
| 19 Remains of sandwiches without filling in hamper (6) | FOSSIL | Container, Def: remains, hamper=foil, sandwiches without filling=ss, FO(SS)IL |
| 21 Girl on vacation in summer month goes to forest (6) | JUNGLE | Container, def: forest, JUN(GL)E |
| 23 Near the centre, ace team almost strikes back (8) | PROXIMAL | Charade Def: Near the centre, PRO XI LAM(s)< |
| 24 Spooner’s game and dance at circus tent (3,3) | BIG TOP | spoonerism of tig bop, def: circus tent |
| 25 Not sleek, deformed framework (8) | SKELETON | Anagram, Def: framework, NOT SLEEK* |
| Down | Answers | Explanations |
| 1 Contract employing mistreated wary dramatist (10) | PLAYWRIGHT | Partial anagram, Def: dramatist, PL(WARY*)IGHT employing=container indicator. |
| 2 Immersed ground around old city island (6) | BURIED | Def: immersed, B(UR)(I)ED |
| 3 First sign of foolishness – heading off to pierce finger (6) | FIDDLE | First sign of foolishness=F (r)IDDLE, pierce=riddle, def: finger |
| 4 Sear fish (4) | CHAR | DD |
| 5 Perfect sailor – salt in the sea, perhaps (8) | ABSOLUTE | AB SOLUTE (salt in the sea is a solute) def: perfect |
| 6 Carry bit of upma in small container (8) | SHOULDER | Def: carry, Container S HO(Upma)LDER |
| 7 Militants are arresting a dictator (4) | TSAR | Hidden word militanTS ARe, def: a dictator, indicator: arresting |
| 13 Found returns from output estimated (3,2) | SET UP | Def: found, outPUT Estimated, reverse telescopic. Indicator: returns from |
| 14 Pioneer speaker taking one drink (10) | ORIGINATOR | Container, def: pioneer, OR(I GIN)ATOR |
| 16 Worked up over fixtures for water (8) | IRRIGATE | Def: water, container IR(RIG)ATE |
| 17 Not starting to be energetic after school, student’s clumsy (8) | SCHLEPPY | Def: clumsy, charade, School: sch, SCH L (p)EPPY |
| 19 Fahrenheit’s zero changed with Kelvin’s lower limit becoming fixed (6) | FROZEN | Partial anagram F (ZERO*)(kelvi)N, def: fixed. |
| 20 Its presence in the kitchen might be useful or scary? (6) | SPIDER | CD (wordplay on kitchen spider) |
| 22 Pascal perhaps, one French writer essentially (4) | UNIT | Definition by example, def: Pascal perhaps, one in French=UN (wr)(IT)(er) |
| 23 Spouse initially gets into personal trouble (4) | PEST | Container PET containing Spouse |
ScoreCard
| Participant name | Grid Score | Bonus | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arvind Kannabiran | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Arvind Ramaswamy | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Dave Williams | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Ganesh Nayak | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Geoff Lee | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Himanshu Rajurkar | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Keith Williams | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Krishnan Anantheswaran | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Kumaresh K R | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Lakshmi Prakash | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Lakshmi Vaidyanathan | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Madhup Tewari | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Max Jackson | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Melissa McSeismal | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Mona Sogal | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Mukundala Balasubramanyam | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Narayan Mandyam | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Nicholas Loader | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Nilesh Parmar | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Prakash Arumugam | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Ramesh Swaminathan | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Ramki Krishnan | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Ratnakumar V | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Samit Kallianpur | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| sandhya paruchuri | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Sohil Bhagat | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Supriya Mithal | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Suresh Dorbala | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Tejas Siddharth | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Venkatesan P. | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Venkatraghavan S. | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Viveca Bhatkal | 147 | 3 | 150 |
| Deepak Gopinath (Col.) | 146 | 3 | 149 |
| Ganesh Raman | 146 | 3 | 149 |
| Ian VanderSchee | 146 | 3 | 149 |
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | 146 | 3 | 149 |
| Ratna Rao | 146 | 3 | 149 |
| Ashit Hegde | 145 | 3 | 148 |
| Nagendra Prasad R. | 145 | 3 | 148 |
| Narayanan Rangamani | 145 | 3 | 148 |
| Rengaswamy N. | 145 | 3 | 148 |
| sree sree | 145 | 3 | 148 |
| Usha Ramesh | 145 | 3 | 148 |
| Veera Raghavan | 145 | 3 | 148 |
| Venkatesh S. (Dr.) | 145 | 3 | 148 |
| Anantakrishnan N. | 144 | 3 | 147 |
| Madhusudan H | 144 | 3 | 147 |
| Avtaar SSv | 143 | 3 | 146 |
| S Rangarajan | 146 | 0 | 146 |
| Yossi Fendel | 143 | 3 | 146 |
| Krittibas Dasgupta | 143 | 0 | 143 |
Congrats to the 33 solvers who maxed the score and to every one who participated. Very well tried.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got a good score of 8.1. It got 5 perfect 10s. The minimum score was 6.
Favorite Clues: Here’s the distribution of favorites picked by the solvers.
Thanks to Metacryptix for a nice breezy start to the year with a pangrammatic puzzle. Looking forward to more grids from her.
Comments on the Puzzle
| ID | Comments |
|---|---|
| 1 | Very good puzzle. My only issue is with FIDDLE, in the cryptic sense, ‘sign’ seems redundant here and necessary only for the surface.Happy new year! |
| 2 | Good grid! |
| 3 | Nice mix of clues of varying difficulty. Excellent way to start the new year! The end puzzle was obvious, based on the title, before any clues were solved. |
| 4 | Great grid to start with. My only feedback would be to substitute some of the longer clues for shorter ones, but that ultimately is a matter of personal preference really. 🙂 |
| 5 | Solving after a long time. Very enjoyable |
| 6 | Gentle introduction to the year, with an eminently guessable endgame before a clue was solved. Grid-wise, there’s a bit of an unwritten rule that blocked grids should have at least two points of access to each area, whereas here the NW and SE corners are only accessed by one each (1d and 14d). Probably some synonyms I wouldn’t have used, but the clues mostly worked ok. Keep at it! |
| 7 | NICE BEGINNING TO THE YEAR |
| 8 | Great start to this year’s Grids … Loved it |
| 9 | Enjoyed solving the grid. |
| 10 | Simple and neat clues. Happy starting for the year. |
| 11 | Almost a pangram! Good puzzle a few tough ones took time. Generally smooth clues. |
| 12 | Nice and easy grid with a fairly obvious theme! The defs and wordplays were mostly very good – only issue was the choice of connectors between wp and def (e.g. “goes to”), and some of the surface stories. |
| 13 | Nice pangrammatic puzzle to start the new season |
| 14 | Good one to start with |
| 15 | Very nice clues and grid; theme was obvious to guess though 🙂 good fun overall |
| 16 | nice grid to start the year |
| 17 | Nice puzzle with good elements of clueing. Some phrases are not natural like ‘in top’ (for ‘on top’ in 9a) or ‘in the sea’ (for ‘of the sea’ in 5d) etc. 20d was a bit open ended for me, would have been better with some tighter def and/or linkage |
| 18 | Great debut puzzle. Good, concise clueing and the right level of difficulty for a start-of-year puzzle IMO 🙂 |
| 19 | nice start to the years grids. |
| 20 | Enjoyed the puzzle , what a start to 2022. |
| 21 | good fun..some very nice surfaces… Cylinder perhaps root issue? and spider too.. |
| 22 | Good |
| 23 | Thanks |
| 24 | Loved the puzzle. Happy new year to all |
| 25 | Enjoyable ,good clues .Not too easy ,a nice beginning to the year. |
| 26 | Nice puzzle! |
| 27 | Nice |
| 28 | Beautiful concise clues. Very enjoyable puzzle. |
| 29 | Good one! Keep them comming! |
| 30 | And Happy New Year to the setter too! |
| 31 | Breezy Challenge |
| 32 | Lovely puzzle. Liked lot of clues ( restricted to choose only 3, very sad ) |
| 33 | Clear wordplay and definitions. |
| 34 | Nice, not too easy |
| 35 | I did this over multiple days and promptly forgot what I’d done before. Sorry 🙁 |
| 36 | Simple and elegant |
| 37 | Intricately designed and well camouflaged clues. |
| 38 | Nice grid |
| 39 | Very well set. Enjoyed doing the puzzle. |
| 40 | A nice selection of words |
| 41 | Had great fun solving the grid. Many lovely clues (too bad we are restricted to pick only 3 though). Awesome Debut Metacryptix! Great start to 2022. Way to go! Looking forward to many many more wonderful grids. |
| 42 | Reasonably good puzzle , especially considering it’s her first solo grid. Needs to work on improving surfaces. |
| 43 | Wasn’t sure about the PLIGHT bit of 1dn but apart from that there were some very nice clues: good surfaces and clever wordplay, esp 5dn and 19ac. 20d as a kitchen utensil was new to me! |
| 44 | Very nice debut and Happy 2022. Not fully convinced with a few annotations. |
| 45 | Great wordplays. Some nice surfaces. A few surfaces that could be improved. If you want to know in detail, please email nnl2334@gmail.com Don’t like rig = fixtures. Overall grid and bonus were a bit easy but very clean wordplay 😀 |
| 46 | Enjoyable and a great start to 2022 crosswords! |
| 47 | Excellent grid with ingenious clues nicely placing letters of the phrase |
| 48 | Nice |
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