Stats The puzzle page was loaded over 990 times. 170 visitors had a go at it and 61 solvers managed to complete and submit the grid. Of those who submitted, only 51 managed to get the maximum possible score of 156.
Here is the solution grid:
ACROSS
1 Brave girl, speak your mind without the slightest prejudice* (7)
Qrypt on YX: O(-p)INE, HER not clued
5 Raucous cries for food* (7)
Viveca: HP CAWS, SHE not clued
9 Free ascent regularly leads to fresh start (5)
Stella: Letter picking
10 Denied opening, staging well organized rally* (9)
Aashwina: (-s)TAGING*, HER not clued
11 Batters nearly out of sight? (9)
Lily Geller: CD
12 Hollow tree over yonder* (5)
Heidi: T(HER)E, HER not clued
13 Treasures jewels hollowed out to encrust onyx, oddly (4)
Lily Geller: J(O(-n)Y(-x)S
15 Increase in gore abruptly doubling in crowd (8)
Melissa: P((-e)ROG<)RESS
18 Gave a fiddlehead and crossed the river (8)
Debbie, A F FORDED
19 Regime that is restricted by edges of desert (4)
Melissa: D(IE)T
22 Secret hoard found in pasta shop (5)
Debbie: Hidden
24 Graduate returning with broken idol is thrown out* (9)
Debasmita: AB< IDOL*, SHE not clued
26 She-power in play, rejecting essentially Men’s Title (9)
Mona: SHEPOWERIN*-m(E)n
27 Grand boat losing leader to student (5)
Debasmita: (+L-b)ARGE
28 Made a gentle start, wandering as I need (7)
Rihannon: AS I NEED*
29 Eastern players took Communion together (2,5)
Supriya: E N(MASS)E
DOWN
1 Brand by maiden starts to establish success* (6)
Neha: M+ES HER not clued
2 Band hosted reception and left in a hurry* (6,3)
Supriya: RU(DO)FF OFF – SHE ignored in wordplay
3 Discover fine, abstract art inside
Amrita: (-f)IN(-e)TRA*
4 How Humpty Dumpty was say, with ugly deep gash, scratched knee in the end (3,6)
Aashwina: EG DEEP GASH*-(kneE)
5 Mentions tourist attractions on the radio (5)
Stella: HP SIGHTS
6 Protected elder attacked outside bar* (9)
Cherie: ELDER* around T SHE ignored
7 Pele losing head about team’s ban (5)
BSH: (-p)E(XI)LE
8 One who grieves parent on the phone (6)
Mona: HP SIRE
14 Covered top Swedish, out-of-shape model losing weight for final event* (9)
Amrita: S {MODE L-L+T}*, HER not clued
16 Criminal could dope unlikely pair (9)
Neha: COULDDOPE*
17 They guide softly taking dogs from both sides* (9)
Sowmya: Semi & LIt (SHE)P(HER)D(-og)S – SHE AND HER not clued
20 A horse running on the beach (6)
Heidi: A HORSE*
21 Leaders secretly bond* (6)
Qrypt on YX: Hidden HER not clued
23 Excursions Jeeves initially skipped with Bertie’s kin, perhaps (6)
Viveca: (-j)AUNTS
24 Pale and wan, having lost weight* (6)
Rhiannon: (-w)AN SHE not clued
25 Writer initially shared literature about Middle-eastern religion (5)
LV: Acrostic
Scorecard
| Participant(s) Name | Score |
|---|---|
| Aashwina Mouli | 156 |
| anand ranganathan | 156 |
| Arvind Kannabiran | 156 |
| Arvind Ramaswamy | 156 |
| ASHIT HEGDE | 156 |
| Avtaar | 156 |
| Ben D Robinson | 156 |
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | 156 |
| BILAL DADAR | 156 |
| Charlie Methven | 156 |
| Dave Williams | 156 |
| Ganesh Nayak | 156 |
| Ganesh Raman | 156 |
| Himanshu Rajurkar | 156 |
| Ian VanderSchee | 156 |
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | 156 |
| Keith Williams | 156 |
| Krittibas Dasgupta | 156 |
| Lakshmi Prakash | 156 |
| Lata Muthanna | 156 |
| Loks Subrahmanyam | 156 |
| Madhup Kumar Tewari | 156 |
| Madhusudan H | 156 |
| Max Jackson | 156 |
| Meera | 156 |
| Mona Sogal | 156 |
| N | 156 |
| NARAYANAN R | 156 |
| Neelima Rai | 156 |
| Paolo P. | 156 |
| Prakash Arumugam | 156 |
| Priya Shyam | 156 |
| PV Sivaram | 156 |
| R Nagendra Prasad | 156 |
| Ramki Krishnan | 156 |
| Rashmi | 156 |
| Ratna | 156 |
| Samit kallianpur | 156 |
| sandhya paruchuri | 156 |
| santha | 156 |
| Satyen Nabar | 156 |
| Saurabh Upadhyay | 156 |
| Simon Chilingworth | 156 |
| Sohil | 156 |
| Sree sree | 156 |
| Supriya Mithal | 156 |
| Tejas Siddharth | 156 |
| V . Ratnakumar | 156 |
| Veera Raghavan | 156 |
| VENKATESAN P. | 156 |
| Venkatraghavan S | 156 |
| H Krishnan | 155 |
| Jesse Lansner | 155 |
| Nilesh Parmar | 155 |
| Ranjani Srikanth | 155 |
| Usha Ramesh | 155 |
| Veena Venkataraman | 155 |
| Al Sanders | 154 |
| Amrita | 154 |
| BINAY KUMAR PATRA | 154 |
| Geoff | 153 |
Congrats to the 51 solvers who maxed the score and to every one who participated. Very well tried.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got a good score of 8.52. It got 14 perfect 10s. The minimum score was 5.
Favorite Clues: Here’s the distribution of favorites picked by the solvers. The Top 3 Clues were
Qrypt On YX’s “Brave girl, speak your mind without the slightest prejudice (7)*”, Aashwina’s “How Humpty Dumpty was say, with ugly deep gash, scratched knee in the end (3,6)” and Lily Geller’s “Batters nearly out of sight? (9)”
Thanks to Qrypt On YX for co-ordinating the puzzle with the various setters and to the entire Sherni team for a terrific puzzle. Do share your comments /feedback in the blog as well.
Here’s the feedback from our solvers
| Comments / Feedback on the puzzle |
|---|
| lovely puzzle |
| Excellent Grid. Enjoyed all the clues !! |
| Loved the theme |
| Loved the puzzle and the innovative hidden three letter words. Was very happy to see some of my favourite setters in the list! |
| Excellent Grid |
| great grid.. more power to she-power 🙂 |
| Liked the wordplay ‘Denied opening’ in 10 across and ‘Discover’ at 3 down. It is quite interesting to see that the three letter words ‘she’ and ‘her’ for which there is no wordplay in the clues, have been cleverly incorporated in the title. Super. |
| Superb clues, really had to think “out of the box” 🙂 |
| Well meshed. Matching frequencies. |
| Great puzzle! Really liked the clues and the extra twist with specific missing 3 letter words. |
| Loved the grid! Wow! Thanks to all the wonderful Setters, loved many clues, had great fun cracking the Star clues especially 🙂 |
| Creative idea and excellent variety of clues! A very fun solve! |
| loved the theme, esp SHEPHERDS at the end! got stuck with INFER instead of INTRA (FINE abstract + A[R]T inside) for a bit, but should’ve questioned if INFER means “discover” sooner so that’s on me |
| Terrific effort by all the lovely ladies who contributed to this grid. |
| fun puzzle! |
| Enjoyable ! |
| Thanks for the enjoyable puzzle girls … Happy Women’s Day! |
| this has been the best women’s day puzzle on 1ac for me so far, the average quality of clue surfaces in general is way higher than those of previous puzzles. nice one. |
| Very good puzzle. |
| Lovely clues! Found it difficult to select only three! |
| Nice clues! Enjoyed the puzzle. In the clue for SMOTHERED, I couldn’t get why -L for “losing weight”. S-[MODE(-L)+T]* around HER |
| Good one ! Loved the idea of intertwining SHE & HER into the solves without wp . Enjoyed the grid. Thanks to all involved ,for your efforts. |
| Great clues. Nice surfaces. And nice to get that elision in so many words |
| women power |
| None |
| A fun puzzle! |
| Always wonderful to have a grid with multiple setters to enjoy the variety in clue styles ,and this one is truly special as I think it was fine in 2 days . Great work Sowmya,Tulips and all illnesses, we rock |
| great grid |
| Nice! |
| Apt for the occasion |
| Nicely themed puzzle, apt for the occasion. Good mix of mostly easy and a few tricky clues. Could quickly guess what the 2 three-letter words were and that made the solving easy. It also helped that we had many such “part of the answer not clued” games on 1Across 🙂 Great job done in several different setters working together to build this grid – never an easy job! |
| Kudos to all the setters! Very nice grid! |
| A she-er delight! |
| Nice concept involving words SHE & HER. |
| Very nice idea. The addition of the asterisk to help identify the non-standard clues made the puzzle a tad too easy, in my opinion. It might have been better to leave it up to the solver to determine which clues those were while solving. |
| A couple of clues I struggled to parse, but overall very nice & smooth |
| Great effort! Keep it up! |
| Excellent puzzle, and clues had thematic consistency which made it even more fun |
| While I think I managed to complete the grid, some of the annotations were not clear to me – look forward to when the solutions alongwith anno’s are published 🙂 |
| Enjoyable, liked the theme |
| Very enjoyable puzzle. I enjoyed spotting the missing shes and hers |
| Nice one. Why was eyelaSHEs not asterisked |
| It was interesting to do a puzzle with many different setters, and tricky. I mistook raucous cries to be an anagram of cries, with her inserted, to get cherries but it didn’t fit… much later I realised the raucous cries were caws, frustratingly good misdirection there! I was not keen on doubling as an anagram indicator. I’ve not had much experience of omitting a substring from the wordplay but having it in the answer and enum, but so far am not particularly fond of that practice. |
| no comments |
| A nice puzzle and great team effort celebrating an occasion that richly deserves recognition |
| Well-crafted puzzle and appropriate for the occasion |
| Nice and gentle. Though many clues did not have complete wordplay, wasn’t difficult to get. Kudos to the women’s team |
| Lovely puzzle, fantastic theme coverage (including in the title!). Not entirely on board with “bertie’s kin, say” for aunt and “slightest prejudice” for p. |
| Easy and nice. |
| Nice simple but entertaining grid |
| Liked: raucous, denied, hollow, brand, band, discover, how, mentions, protected, pele, one, a, leaders, pale, writer. Disliked: brave S: ‘prejudice’, free S, batters S, treasures S: oddly, increase S, gave s, regime s, secret s: hoard, graduate s: with broken idol, she-power s: she-power, grand: s, made s: need (to/ed), eastern w: root issue, covered s: should be top, out of shape, criminal s: unlikely and they s: from both sides, s=surface, w=wp, slightly too easy, great idea to drop three letter words, good fun 😀 Thanks for all your hard work! |
| Nice one |
| Quite engaging! |
| smothered could have a different defn. |
| Happy International Women’s Day! Seemed odd that at least two of the clues did not exclude the SHE/HER components, which was a shame in an otherwise entertaining puzzle. |
| Enjoyed solving the puzzle. it definitely was on the easier side. I could anno a few clues but overall a great effort! |
| For a team effort, a nice balance of clue types and difficulties. Enjoyed the Easter Egg |
| Good thematic inclusions. Easier than some. |
| The clues are fiendish if taken alone, but in a grid they become super easy. |
The Sherni Team
Heidi (Admin of 1Across): Happily retired speech pathologist living with husband and two cats in her home state of Hawai’i. Enjoys hula, ukulele, playing Mah Jong, and messing about with words. |
Qrypt On Y X (Co-ordinated with the setters and helped to edit the clues): Call me Bohemian if you may, I like all things offbeat. Quizzes and puzzles keep me engaged and entertained. I travel far and wide through books that enrich and replenish. Nature rejuvenates me. Woman on Wanderlust Woman on Wonderlust |
Sowmya (Founder of 1Across.org conceptualized / created this grid). Sowmya, who sets for “The Hindu” as Hypatia has compiled and published Cryptic Crossroads 1, 2 and 3. She is also the recipient of two Guinness Awards for Crochet. |
Lakshmi (Admin of 1Across): I set crosswords using the pseudonym “SARAL” for Col’s blog & for 1Across. As the name suggests, I’m a simple, peace loving person interested in crosswords |
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Amrita – Always ready for a laugh, crazy about crosswords, yoga, interior designing, cooking, music and reading. |
Viveca: I feel lucky to be part of Sowmya’s close-knit 1AC group. It adds an exciting dimension to an abiding passion. Have met so many friendly and talented people who share my interest and introduce me to new ones. I am thankful to be able to participate in this community grid to mark the International Women’s Day. Happy Women’s Day to all. 🙏🏻 |
Debasmita: Currently residing in a quaint village in Odisha. Teacher/Researcher.. |
Cherie: I am a part-time bookkeeper, part-time granny, and more than part-time appreciater of the Facebook cryptic crossword community! |
Debbie: Debbie Manber Kupfer grew up in London, but somehow ended up in St. Louis, Missouri, where she lives with her family including two very opinionated felines. She works as a writer, editor, and puzzle constructor and is the author of the young adult fantasy series, P.A.W.S. Her puzzles have appeared in Penny Press and Dell magazines. She believes that with enough tea and dark chocolate you can achieve anything! Visit Debbie Manber Kupfer on her website Paws 4 Puzzles or on Facebook. |
Mona: I am self-employed and live in Bangalore, most of the time. I love crosswords and passionately enjoy both solving and setting. Happy women’s day to all..just don’t limit yourselves 🙂 |
Neha: I started solving cryptic crosswords about 7 years ago and enjoy both solving and setting clues. I hope to publish a grid someday and am excited to be a setter for this special! |
Lily: Lily Geller is an avid puzzler from Brooklyn, New York, who constantly wishes she had more free time to set cryptic clues. Maybe next year …. |
Rhiannon: Rhiannon lives in Canberra, Australia, with family and 2 elderly dogs. She enjoys word games, cryptic crossword clues, music (singing, playing brass and some other wind instruments), and works as a programmer. |
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Aashwina: Crosswords are a hobby that I have embraced after my retirement from active work life as a software engineer and an entrepreneur. I do The Hindu crosswords regularly and they keep me mentally agile. I recently had surgery and crosswords kept me going through my recovery phase so I think they were a big part of my fast recovery! SOTM/COTM in CCS and the 1Across Gridfests have helped me brush my skills in setting as I appreciate the lovely clues and solves. All the best to 1Across in this year as we do this grid for Women’s day! |
Bharati: I am a writer and activist from Mumbai. A mediocre but avid cruciverbalist. Sets under the name of sneakyb |
Melissa: Hi! I’m Melissa. I’m Australian and live in the countryside. Apart from being involved in cryptic crossword what-not, I love reading and watching films – anything set prior to 1910. If it were practicable, I would love to dress everyday as though I had just stepped out of Pride and Prejudice. Alas. |
Supriya: I’m from Delhi, currently working for a Gurgaon based NGO involved in the education of children from under- privileged backgrounds. I love reading, solving and setting cryptic crosswords and Sudoku. In the past few years, I have contributed a few grids to blogs and Facebook groups and hope to set more in the future. |
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