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Here is the solution grid:
BONUS QUESTIONS:
- The Theme is indicated by the following Wordplay without definition. The title of the grid is, in some way, related to the theme. Measure dance suit What is the Theme? (13 letters, 2 words) ANS: FOOTBALL CLUBS
- Identify the seven themed entries: ANS: CHELSEA (1A+5A), SANTOS (13A+14A), ARSENAL (3D, 21D), SCHALKE (12D, 26D), LIVERPOOL (9D,20D <<<<), A C MILAN (13D) and RANGERS (30D)
Since the notes already indicated that 39A FEYENOORD is an instance of the theme, points were not given for those who cleverly identified that:)
Annotations
| ACROSS | |||
| # | Clue | Solution | Annotation |
| 1 | Sizes interchanged in fasteners for bag (7) | SATCHEL | LATCHES with S & L interchanged |
| 5 | A skinless bizarre animal hides (9) | SEAL SKINS | ASKINLESS*(bizarre) |
| 10 | Launch of disco dance from New Zealand’s capital (5) | DHAKA | D(isco)+ HAKA (dance from NZ) |
| 11 | Short description in front of entrance to TV shop – one with ten screens – that defines how pictures appear (6,5) | ASPECT RATIO | A(one) + IO (ten) around (screens) {SPEC (short desc.)+T(-v)+RAT (verb – shop) } |
| 13 | Maybe a sari weaver’s counter in Varanasi trains? (7) | ARTISAN | Rev Tel varaNASI TRAins |
| 14 | Hollow trees divided by very large rock (4) | TOSS | T(…)S around (divided by) OS(very large) |
| 15 | Carriage to catch flight (4) | TRAP | Triple Definition. Carriage (noun as in vehicle), to catch(verb to trap)+ Flight (of stairs – ref: Chambers) |
| 17 | Picked up sounds like a cat’s brood (4) | MUSE | HP (indicator picked up) Mews (Sounds like a cat) |
| 18 | Sources of Manila hemp from juice of casaba (6) | ABACAS | Anagram (Juice of) CASABA* |
| 19 | Pioneer’s abstract getting reviewed (5) | PACER | RECAP(abstract as in synopsis)<<< |
| 22 | Discharges from tip of glacier, sea and lake analysed (8) | LEAKAGES | {G(lacier)+SEA+LAKE}* |
| 24 | Old Croatian pitcher with design of oval figures at the base (8) | JUGOSLAV | JUG(pitcher)+OVAL*(design of)+figure(S) |
| 27 | Nothing is obtained by casually whiling away with wife and girlfriend, primarily (5) | NIHIL | (WHILING -(away with) W,G}*(casually) |
| 28 | Money to acquire the French carriage with folding top (6) | CALASH | CASH (money) around(to acquire) LA(the French) |
| 29 | Master skips psychological examination (4) | ORAL | -mORAL. Moral = psychological as in Moral support |
| 32 | Disagree with way I escaped from fate? (4) | DENY | {ST(way)+I} out of (escaped from) DESTINY(fate) |
| 33 | Almost fully compressed cheese (4) | BRIE | BRIEF(compressed)-F(almost fully last letter cut) |
| 34 | I dangle bananas in a row (7) | ALIGNED | IDANGLE*(bananas) |
| 35 | Calling time-out? (6,5) | CAREER BREAK | Cryptic Definition: A time out from calling (career) |
| 37 | These boys have turned fat (5) | OBESE | Rev(turned) tel(have). theESE Boys |
| 39 | Tackled by forward, Rooney effortlessly does a backflip (9) | FEYENOORD | Reverse Telescopic forward ROONEY EFffortlessly <<< |
| 40 | European very loudly services drains (7) | EFFUSES | Fellows(FF) inside (visiting) E(Spain) USE(to service)+S(pecial) |
| DOWN | |||
| # | Clue | Solution | Annotation |
| 1 | Squid regularly discharged foam (3) | SUD | S(-q)U(-i)D |
| 2 | Leaflet with American psalm rendered during Lent (7) | TRACTUS | TRACT (leaflet)+ US(American) |
| 3 | Coach moving to Inter? (6) | HEARSE | Cryptic Definiton |
| 4 | Label fixed outside pocket can be easily grasped (9) | LEARNABLE | LABEL*(fixed) around (outside) EARN(ocket) |
| 6 | Accountant raised invoices finally, including charge for escorts (7) | ACCOSTS | CA<<< (raised – down clue) invoice(S) around (including) COST (charge) |
| 7 | Savour grains of Spanish aromatic risotto (3) | SAR | Acrostic (grains of) S(p….h) A(r…c)R(i…o) |
| 8 | Suffering from jaundice, model finally became critical (9) | ICTERICAL | (becam(E)+CRITICAL))* (model) |
| 9 | Puddles rising in boat (5) | SLOOP | POOLS<<< (rising) |
| 12 | Insurgence in lodge near school (6) | PUTSCH | PUT (lodge)+SCH(school) |
| 13 | Team of Italians about to visit Manila, for a change (7 letters 3 words) | AC MILAN | C(about) inside (to visit) MANILA*(For a change) |
| 16 | Some cycling outside entrance to premier racetrack (5) | EPSOM | SOME with E<> is ESOM around P(remier) |
| 20 | Maligned revolutionary set free (7) | REVILED | DELIVER (set free)<<< (revolutionary) |
| 21 | A liberal line adopted by North American channel (5) | NALLA | A + L(iberal),L(ine) inside (adopted by) NA |
| 23 | Like the colour of wood , remains oddly green – has a hint of yellow (5,4) | ASHEN GREY | (GREEN+HAS+Yellow)* |
| 25 | Free working lunch with sake (9) | UNSHACKLE | Anagram(working) (LUNCH+SAKE)* |
| 26 | Hydrocarbon polluted lake on the outskirts of Newcastle (6) | ALKENE | LAKE*(polluted)+N(…….)E |
| 28 | Buffalo Bill returned with Harry, a boar (7) | CARABAO | AC(Bill)<<<(returned) +(with) ABOAR*(anagrid Harry) |
| 30 | Unknown visitors losing way could be combat-trained soldiers? (7) | RANGERS | STRANGERS(Unknown visitors)-ST(way) |
| 31 | Eid? Go out in large numbers ! (3,3) | DIE OFF | Reverse Anagram. EID=Anagram OFF of DIE |
| 32 | Met over coffee (5) | FACED | FACED(met)<<<(over) |
| 36 | Born around the time before sunset (3) | EEN | NEE(Born)<<<(around) |
| 38 | Measures employed in press for Indian Communist legend | EMS | DD |
Scorecard
| Participant(s) Name | Grid Score | Bonus | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nicholas Loader | 200 | 9 | 209 |
| Dave Williams | 200 | 8 | 208 |
| Ganesh S Nayak | 200 | 8 | 208 |
| Madhup Tewari | 200 | 8 | 208 |
| Mona Sogal | 200 | 8 | 208 |
| prakash arumugam | 200 | 8 | 208 |
| Ratna Rao | 200 | 8 | 208 |
| Samit kallianpur | 200 | 8 | 208 |
| Tejas Siddharth | 200 | 8 | 208 |
| Venkatraghavan S | 200 | 8 | 208 |
| Ashit Hegde | 200 | 7 | 207 |
| Lakshmi Prakash | 199 | 8 | 207 |
| LV | 200 | 7 | 207 |
| Madhusudan H | 200 | 7 | 207 |
| NARAYANAN R | 199 | 8 | 207 |
| Ramki Krishnan | 199 | 8 | 207 |
| RATNAKUMAR V | 199 | 8 | 207 |
| Supriya Mithal | 200 | 7 | 207 |
| Veera Raghavan | 200 | 7 | 207 |
| VENKATESAN P. | 200 | 7 | 207 |
| Deepak Gopinath | 198 | 8 | 206 |
| Himanshu Rajurkar | 199 | 7 | 206 |
| Aashwina mouli | 198 | 7 | 205 |
| Al Sanders | 198 | 7 | 205 |
| Ian VanderSchee | 199 | 6 | 205 |
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | 200 | 3 | 203 |
| N Anantakrishnan | 199 | 4 | 203 |
| Sree Sree | 199 | 4 | 203 |
| Max Jackson | 198 | 4 | 202 |
| sandhya paruchuri | 200 | 0 | 200 |
| Ben D Robinson | 197 | 0 | 197 |
| Sparsh Sinha | 197 | 0 | 197 |
| D Narayana Swamy | 195 | 1 | 196 |
| R NAGENDRA PRASAD | 195 | 1 | 196 |
| Nilesh Parmar | 184 | 7 | 191 |
Congrats to the Nick Loader who maxed the score and to every one who participated. Very well tried.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got a good score of 8.5. It got 8 perfect 10s (24% of those who rated). The lowest score was 5.
Favorite Clues: The Top 3 clues were
- Sizes interchanged in fasteners for bag (7) 15 votes
- Disagree with way I escaped from fate? (4) 8 votes and
- Calling time-out? (6,5) and Tackled by forward, Rooney effortlessly does a backflip (9) 6 votes each.
Thanks Avtaar for a really challenging and well crafted grid. We haven’t done this theme before and seamlessly weaving the theme to span across the grid entries was really clever.
Here is what our solvers said…
| Comments / Feedback on the puzzle |
|---|
| Wonderful challenging puzzle, had all the elements of Entertainment, Information, Brainwork and Satisfaction. Thank you 🙂 |
| I will say I do not like football generally, but this was a brilliant grid. Rooney in Feyenoord was a brilliant find. Anno for deny was a nice moment. Sneaky triple def with trap. Very engaging puzzle, no complaints whatsoever. |
| Nice puzzle. Excellent clues. Enjoyed solving |
| Wonderful puzzle |
| Enjoyable puzzle & nice theme |
| A tough and Very engaging puzzle. Super brain game. |
| Outstanding Grid |
| A fairly tough puzzle but very enjoyable |
| Superb puzzle. Lovely grid fill as well |
| A very enjoyable grid. Very approachable as well. Great clues with amazing surfaces. |
| Tough but interesting |
| Enjoyable puzzle! Consitently good clueing. |
| Lovely grid |
| Tough one from Avtaar |
| very interesting concept |
| Fun puzzle, don’t really know Euro football teams though |
| Good one! |
| Excellent clues,not familiar with the theme so took me some time to discover the themed words.Very enjoyable grid |
| Good one! |
| Typical Avtaar puzzle with lots of intricate wordplay to be parsed patiently, but very satisfying once you get the answer. Took longer to identify the themed words (NOT my cup of tea!) than to solve the grid! |
| Very enjoyable puzzle |
| TOUGH |
| Nil |
| Nice puzzle! But I had to quickly familiarize myself with groups associated with the theme. |
| rather difficult |
| Another very enjoyable puzzle. |
| On the tougher side, liked the theme |
| I liked this puzzle for the thematic concept, novelty value and the challenge, was satisfying to solve and (hopefully) identifying the thematic entries. There were however some limitations or shortcomings:1) Double unches are a strict no-no (i am baffled why administrator still allows them) and to have that in a thematic undefined entry is quite egregious2) Clues which are bi-directional are avoidable since they can potentially lead to opposite answers, and to expect that they get resolved only with crossings is not fair. Eg 20d could be DELIVER or REVILED, likewise 36d could be EEN or NEE on the face of it3) Using Scottish or poetic meanings is fine but requires an indication for fairness and clarity (especially when triple definitions are used which just adds to the confusion)4) Some minor issues with the construction and in a couple of cases with definitions, eg pioneer for pacer, and escorts for accosts which don’t really seem to equate unless I’m missing something5) The theme is not my forte and I had to do some research, but it did seem that some of the ‘thematic’ entries are not strictly in conformity with the accepted nomenclature (my apologies if I am mistaken) |
| The thme was exactly the opposite of my cup of tea … While all the others are local city clubs, I’m not sure whether the national team “USA” (between 2d and 23d) was meant to be one of the theme answers? Clue for 5a would have benefited from *not* having SKIN it, since SKIN was part of the answer. |
| Nice one .specifically fitting the names in the grid . |
| Feels very unfair that there is a word only in Chambers 2016 which appears nowhere else online as I’m guessing is the case for ‘sar’ which I’m guessing means savour(?). I disagree that escorts = accosts. Escorts is only sexual in noun form, accosts only in verb form. Catch flight = trap? Why? You only trap with feet if that’s the idea(?) A lot of cryptic grammar is liberal ‘counter’, ‘does a backflip’ in FEYENOORD (though a stunningly good find otherwise). Having said that, some really nice clues here too! Excellent, well hidden theme. Bonus, maybe a bit too challenging schalken and rangers are pretty tough to spot. 8/10 for bonus though. Very nicely hidden. Being picky but felt cheated with finally proceeding became. There are many indicators which can be read either way without doing something like that. Also, why does ‘moral’ = ‘psychological’? Some great new words for me. A bit negative so let me list my other faves (not selected in list): BRIE, EFFUSES, PUTSCH, NALLA, ALKENE and UNSHACKLE. |
| Themed entries unclear, to me, anyway. |