Stats The puzzle page was loaded 507 times. 89 visitors had a go at it and 24 solvers managed to complete and submit the grid. Of those who submitted, 16 managed to get the maximum possible score of 163.
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Cyclical 2<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
Annotations
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 Fevered cultists dithered, being suicidal (4-11) | self-destructive | (FEVERED CULTISTS)* |
| 9 Peer disliked prohibition agent’s high moral quality (5-10) | noble-mindedness | NOBLE+MINDED+NESS |
| 10 Perhaps second allotments where trios buried tins unwisely (15) | redistributions | (TRIOS BURIED TINS)* |
| 11 Nine dachas align incorrectly for Anglophone in Quebec? (7,8) | English Canadian | (NINE DACHAS ALIGN)* |
| 12 Perhaps it is good manners, in a legal position holding case near Cape (15) | considerateness | ONSIDE in CRATE + NESS |
| 13 Against form, Milan team leads mutual change (15) | interconversion | INTER+CON+VERSION |
| 14 Idealists ruined building to reduce manufacturing capability (15) | deindustrialise. | (IDEALISTS RUINED)*. |
| DOWN | ||
| 1 Maybe show onlookers boss facing ten formal interviews (6,9) | studio audiences | STUD+IO+AUDIENCES |
| 2 One in wooded surrounding uses firs roughly for grooves in organs (7,8) | sylvian fissures | I in SYLVAN + (USES FIRS)* |
| 3 Normalcies prone to change projection of astral gas (5,10) | solar prominence | (NORMALCIES PRONE)* |
| 4 The power to regulate against online pest with skill (15) | controllability | CON+TROLL+ABILITY |
| 5 With switches being turned, the military have the means to supply bombes, say (7,8) | dessert services | TRESSED< + SERVICES |
| 6 Straight thinking plainly made for bill (15) | clearheadedness | CLEAR + HEADED + NESS |
| 7 Graduated instruments perhaps ruling courts? (9,6) | measuring spoons. | MEASURING + SPOONS. |
BONUS QUESTIONS
Identify the NINA (7)
It’s ENDLESS – appearing along the diagonal starting from the top right.
Scorecard
| Participant | Total | Grid Score | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ashit Hegde | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Dave Williams | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Himanshu Rajurkar | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Lakshmi Prakash | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Madhup Tewari | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Max Jackson | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Mona Sogal | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Narayan Mandyam | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Narayanan Rangamani | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Prakash Arumugam | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Rathnakumar V | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Samit Kallianpur | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Satyen Nabar | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Tejas Siddharth | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Venkatraghavan S. | 163 | 161 | 2 |
| Ian VanderSchee | 161 | 161 | 0 |
| Supriya Mithal | 161 | 161 | 0 |
| Veera Raghavan | 161 | 161 | 0 |
| Venkatesan P. | 160 | 158 | 2 |
| Madhusudan H | 159 | 157 | 2 |
| Sree Sree | 159 | 157 | 2 |
| Nagendra Prasad R. | 156 | 156 | 0 |
| Venkatesh S (Dr.) | 70 | 70 | 0 |
Congrats to the 16 solvers who maxed the score and to every one who participated. Very well tried.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got an excellent score of 8.33. It got 6 perfect 10s (25% of those who solved). The lowest score was 5.
Favorite Clues: The Top 3 clues were
Idealists ruined building to reduce manufacturing capability (15) – 11 votes
The power to regulate against online pest with skill (15) – 11 votes and
Peer disliked prohibition agent’s high moral quality (5-10) – 8 votes each.
Comments / Feedback: Here’s the feedback from our solvers
| Comments / Feedback on the puzzle – Please provide specific com |
|---|
| Very creative. Tough but enjoyable |
| Tough complicated grid but great fun to solve |
| Great puzzle! Not easy but very enjoyable. Wonderful clues, as well. |
| Tough clues. An entertaining puzzle. |
| Killer of a grid. Was at my wit’s end to get the solutions. Still I am not sure of one solution though. |
| Well set |
| Lovely puzzle, as usual from Eclogue |
| Brilliant! |
| Stunning effort |
| Great Fun |
| I can’t begin to imagine how that was constructed. The setters clearly have programming skill! … It did make parts of the solve a similarly mechanical process though. |
| Good challenge.. |
| good one |
| GOOD ONE |
| Tricky and enjoyable |
| Answers were easy but the confusion about fitting them in right places was tough. |
| Nice grid! |
| Interesting grid construction. A different and nice experience. NINA was not easy to spot. |
| Challenging. Had to cold solve clues not knowing crossing letters. It was pleasure to see everything meshing properly. Unfortunately couldn’t locate NINA |
| Great theme and happy to crack the NINA, but getting one answer wrong. |
| Perhaps the ‘flag’ made it too easy. With 11, 2 and 6 I got a start. The letters didn’t appear over the circles in 11 (Opera browser) – I hope they’ve registered OK. |
| Tough puzzle. Some of the definitions/ charade components were too vague. DESSERT SERVICES was very hard to find, even though DESSERT(s) was obvious, and even then the anno was hard.Maybe such puzzles need more partial anagrams? Maybe some of the anagrams can also be changed to partial anagrams.Much of the time taken to complete the puzzle was due to INTERCONVERSION and DESSERT SERVICES. |
| I found this tough , possibly because I could not spend much time on it. This is one of those 2-3 sitting grids ,could not find the Nina either |
| A regulation jigsaw, the type where if you have most of the pieces, fitment is just a matter of a couple of iterations and spotting patterns. The key is of course getting the pieces which largely involves cold solving. Personally I prefer the version where the wordplay leads to the scrambled form as entered, it gives a little more to work with using crossings and makes it more interesting too. Liked the reference to the Untouchables |
Thanks to “Eclogue” for a challenging puzzle. The Grid construction remains mind boggling and quite an accomplishment to have featured a NINA as well. Your puzzles never fail to entertain, as could be seen from the feedback from the solvers.
Readers – do leave us your comments and feedback on the puzzle even if you could not complete and submit. We always love to hear from you all.