Stats The puzzle page was loaded over 485 times. 106 visitors had a go at it and 56 solvers managed to complete and submit the grid. Of those who submitted, only 31 managed to get the maximum possible score of 153.
The Eagles Have Landed<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
ACROSS
6 In British India, Sir Henry involved in spreading bias (5)
H in bias*
7 Say, trumpet originally manufactured with 50% indium and this metal (8)
HP CROW + M + IUM
10 Fine-piercing in Germany is the latest trend (2-5)
thin inside in G
11 Second clue is “Contaminated drains” (7)
S + (clue is)*
12 Residents of Minnesota in trouble – wanting love and affection ultimately (7)
(minnesota – ON)*
14 Briefly join company – most people are pleasant (7)
wel(-d) + co + me(-n)
15 Criminals stealing complex vaults having new drugs (11)
cons around vaults* around N
20 Husband drinks after former wife expires (7)
ex H ales
22 Fudging foreign Visa to enter plane – almost! (7)
visa* in eve(-n)
24 Various roles of Gardner perhaps – terrific star! (7)
Ava + tars*
26 Perhaps Kangana in “Queen” – that woman’s single, outside India (7)
her one outside I
27 Exclusive entry to party at New Orleans (8)
P + orleans*
28 Starting to engage in lively banquet (5)
E in fast
DOWN
1 Without a hitch, army moved, having a steady pace (8)
(hitch army – A)*
2 Musician from SoBo is terrific (6)
Hidden
3 Extremely satisfying to keep dog right away inside shelter (4)
cu(-r) in S G
4 In the beginning, archer rarely could string bows (4)
Acrostic
5 Ambassador of corrupt college union (6)
(c union)*
6 Liquor bottle? (6)
DD
8 Tearful alumni rushed to welcome director (7)
alumni* around D
9 Pale and sick initially at the time of losing wife (5)
A S (-w)hen
13 Cabins below small bars (5)
s huts
14 While going north, came across the empty desert (5)
was <– T E
16 Animals love to loll about around lunchtime (7)
nil + sag <– around I
17 Apes retreating after leader killed by sailor’s sword (8)
(-m)imics <– + tar
18 Do nothing about needs, say (5)
re + lacks hp
19 Empty building – resident not in (6)
(resident – IN)*
21 Enjoy consuming drug, finally attain nirvana (6)
E in have + N
23 Confused Democrat getting into a fight (6)
D in a rift
25 Number of prison guards (4)
Hidden
26 Curt greeting in horrible place (4)
hell(-o)
Scorecard
| Participant | TOTAL | Grid Score | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Venkatraghavan S. | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Tejas Siddharth | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| sandhya paruchuri | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Dave Williams | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Samit Kallianpur | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Aashwina mouli | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Ian VanderSchee | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Satyen Nabar | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Keith Williams | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Madhusudan H | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Supriya Mithal | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| sree sree | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Al Sanders | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Venkatesan P. | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Himanshu Rajurkar | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Ratna Rao | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Arvind Kannabiran | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Anand Ranganathan | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Narayanan Rangamani | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Nilesh Parmar | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Sivaram PV | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Ashit Hegde | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Ganesh Nayak | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Sohil Bhagat | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Mona Sogal | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Max Jackson | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Shashwat Sinai Salgaocar | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Nicholas Loader | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Lakshmi Prakash | 153 | 143 | 10 |
| Avtaar SSv | 152 | 143 | 9 |
| Madhup Tewari | 152 | 143 | 9 |
| Rathnakumar V | 152 | 143 | 9 |
| Ramesh Swaminathan | 151 | 143 | 8 |
| Prakash Arumugam | 150 | 142 | 8 |
| Sparsh Sinha | 150 | 141 | 9 |
| Debasmita Basu | 149 | 141 | 8 |
| Lakshmi Vaidyanathan | 148 | 141 | 7 |
| Ranjani Srikanth | 147 | 143 | 4 |
| Amrita | 147 | 138 | 9 |
| Krittibas Dasgupta | 147 | 141 | 6 |
| Priya Shyam | 147 | 138 | 9 |
| Nagendra Prasad R. | 146 | 141 | 5 |
| BINAY KUMAR PATRA | 145 | 141 | 4 |
| Veera Raghavan | 145 | 143 | 2 |
| Alison Crutchfield | 143 | 143 | 0 |
| Deepak Gopinath (Col.) | 143 | 143 | 0 |
| Meera | 143 | 143 | 0 |
| Venkatesh S (Dr.) | 143 | 143 | 0 |
| Lata Muthanna | 143 | 143 | 0 |
| Hawk Crossword | 143 | 143 | 0 |
| Jonathon Brown | 142 | 142 | 0 |
| Narayan Mandyam | 140 | 140 | 0 |
| Veena Venkataraman | 138 | 138 | 0 |
| Jane | 135 | 135 | 0 |
Congrats to the 31 solvers who maxed the score and to every one who participated. Very well tried.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got an excellent score of 8.74. It got 10 perfect 10s. The minimum score was 7.
Favorite Clues: Here’s the distribution of favorites picked by the solvers.
Here’s the feedback from our solvers
| Comments / Feedback on the puzzle |
|---|
| Brilliant puzzle! Deceptive theme, seeing that there is a movie by that name (somewhat) too! Crisp surfaces! |
| Loved it! |
| Just the right amount of challenge in this one. Great surfaces and brilliant clues! |
| Excellent clues , very difficult to select just 3, besides the 7 themed words , there are many others related to a broader music theme. Very enjoyable |
| Entertaining puzzle. Nice theme. NINA neatly brought in. |
| Lovely clues |
| Delightful creation. |
| Very nice grid with lovely bonus questions |
| Such a brilliantly compiled Grid, accolades to the setter. |
| entertaining |
| Very nice puzzle. Economic clues, and nice theme |
| Simple but well constructed puzzle, with an all too familiar theme that will endear itself to many |
| Didn’t spot the theme/ninas until the bonus form stage – despite the theme topic being a favourite! The nina excuses the *one* obscure word at 3d. All clever stuff. |
| Nice and easy. 17d is the replacement after reversal or before? |
| Nice accessible grid, only a couple of really obscure entries |
| Good one |
| very nice theme and concept |
| Great theme! Enjoyed the grid. |
| This was a fine puzzle. Some very good cluing through-out. Kudos to the setter!The puzzle got solved quickly enough, but the theme took a long time to fall in place. Only when I spotted the NINA, did I realise this was about a particular song and not the overall catalogue of the band. |
| Fun, entertaining grid..some very nice surface stories |
| Good puzzle. Short, enjoyable surfaces. Repeating desert could have been avoidable. |
| Excellent and precise wordplay. Tricky but gettable theme. Enjoyed very much |
| An absolutely delightful puzzle. Great clues! |
| Nice grid. Smooth clues |
| Nice puzzle. |
| Really enjoyed solving the grid! |
| Nice Puzzle |
| Nice grid. Could not identify theme. Seems it requires skills extraneous to those required for solving clues. |
| Very nice grid, with great surfaces! Well done Zodiac! |
| Nice puzzle – shame DESERT is used both in clue 14 and as the (themed) answr to 19, which was probably avoidable. Otherwise no major issues. |
| Enjoyed the grid and theme questions |
| good puzzle |
| entertaining puzzle. the word desert occurring twice was a minor blemish. |
| SUPER |
| Quite a tribute to the one and only EAGLES. And to one of the all time great rock songs |
| Very nice surfaces, very enjoyable theme, only wish the clues had been a bit tougher |
| A favourite track. Nice clues generally. |
| Excellent puzzle |
| Interesting theme |
| Very logical and a pleasure to solve. |
| Excellent puzzle – loved the theme and the nina! |
| – |
| Worth attempting puzzle often entailing rethink. |
| Nice range of clue types, and the anagrams were well hidden |
| Nice theme and puzzle |
| Good theme, easy puzzle, technically correct, nice surfaces. |
| Fantastic, fun grid. Having great surfaces was really refreshing. Technically, grammatically it should be ‘could rarely’ but I doubt anyone will notice that. Wordplay, also very clean and accurate. Only issue for me was ‘confused’ to mean ‘adrift’. A bit easy overall but an excellent bonus. Challenging but with a clear answer once you worked it out. |
Thanks to “The Zodiac” for an entertaining puzzle. I particularly enjoyed the crisp clues and how well the theme had been seamlessly woven into the grid so much so that, many solvers didnt even see it till they saw the Bonus questions:). Very cleverly done. Thank you and looking forward to hosting more puzzles from you in our blog.
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