Stats The puzzle page was loaded 435 times. 90 visitors had a go at it and 34 solvers managed to complete and submit. Of those who submitted, 25 managed to get the maximum possible score of 149.
If you enjoy our puzzles, you would also like our puzzle collections that have been published worldwide.
Cryptogram<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
BONUS QUESTIONS:
- Identify the theme, as per the NINA ANS: CRYPTOCURRENCY (Top and Bottom rows in the Grid)
- Identify any 3 of FIVE themed entries: ANS: BLOCKCHAIN, LICENSED, HASH, SATOSHI NAKAMOTO, RECEIPTS
- Identify the theme word from the coloured boxes in the grid (7) ANS: BITCOIN
- Identify the theme word from the circled letters in the grid (8) ANS: DOGECOIN
Due to an unfortunate error while compiling results, the responses received for the two of the 3 required theme entries got deleted in the form and could not be retrieved. Hence the total bonus points were adjusted from 7 to 5 based on the remaining questions.
Annotations
| ACROSS | CLUE | DEF / ANNO | |
| 8 | FOREGO | Give up and leave after loud protagonist returns topless (6) | GIVE UP / loud F protagonist (–H)ERO << GO leave |
| 9 | AQUARIAN | A rain dance follows as per Shakira perhaps (8) | SHAKIRA PERHAPS / A QUA (as per) RAIN* |
| 10 | BLOCKCHAIN | Bar and church in a dubious network of transactions (10) | NETWORK OF TRANSACTIONS /
BLOCK (bar) CH (church) INA* |
| 11 | AWED | One married and wonderstruck (4) | WONDERSTRUCK /
(one) A + WED (married) |
| 12 | LICENSED | Certified Indian bourse finally removed bugs at the start (8) | CERTIFIED / LICE (bugs) + NSE (Indian bourse) + D (finally removed) |
| 14 | AXIS | Turning point for a team getting top spinners (4) | TURNING POINT / A XI (team) S (Spinners first letter) |
| 16 | SATOSHI NAKAMOTO | I, Tom Hanks, as often as needed, will play a crypto pioneer (7,8) | A CRYPTO PIONEER / (I TOM HANKS + S A A T O O )* letters S A A T O O used again from the bank I Tom hanks |
| 19 | ZEAL | Passion of Elizabeth shaken after loss of husband, I bet! (4) | PASSION / (ELiZAbeth – h I bet)* |
| 20 | RECEIPTS | Priest dancing outside church slips (8) | SLIPS / PRIEST* around CE church |
| 24 | HASH | Politician with resentment leaves Hampshire function (4) | FUNCTION /
HAMPSHIRE – MP – IRE |
| 25 | OVERREACTS | Piles it on again in six balls and plays (10) | PILES IT ON / six balls OVER again RE plays ACTS |
| 27 | EMPANELS | Selects lists of jurors figuring in new pleas after exam ends (8) | SELECTS LISTS OF JURORS / E..M + new (N PLEAS) * |
| 28 | EMIGRE | Refugee’s loan instalment increased endlessly (6) | REFUGEE / EMI (loan instalment) GRE(-w) (increased endlessly) |
| DOWN | CLUE | DEF / ANNO | |
| 1 | COLLOIDAL | Gel-like cold oil massaged by boy almost keeling over (9) | GEL-LIKE /
COLD OIL* + boy almost (–d) AL<< |
| 2 | RESCUE | Relief from hopeless sinecure leaving India (6) | RELIEF / S(-in) ECURE* |
| 3 | YOICKS | Wild cry of about thousand soldiers primarily following unknown old Indian chief (6) | WILD CRY / C (about) K (thousand) S (soldiers primarily) after (unknown) Y (old) O (Indian chief) I |
| 4 | PARA | Hit back with a short passage (4) | A SHORT PASSAGE / (hit)RAP< + A |
| 5 | TURN BACK | Reverend ordering light food for retreat (4,4) | RETREAT /
Switch B&T in BURN light TACK food |
| 6 | ORGANISM | System’s voice is male (8) | SYSTEM / ORGAN voice IS M male |
| 7 | CAPER | Prank caught monkey king (5) | PRANK/ C caught APE monkey R king |
| 13 | DINAR | Partner in revolutionary heist gets money (5) | MONEY /
N (partner) in heist RAID << revolutionary |
| 15 | STATUTORY | Coach’s given accommodation outside as per rules (9) | AS PER RULES /
(Coach) TUTOR in STAY (accommodation) |
| 17 | OVERHEAR | Tap off in this place, say (8) | TAP / OVER(off) ~HEAR(in this place) |
| 18 | HOLLOWER | Hero’s foremost fan losing bit of faith becomes more doubtful (8) | H (-f) OLLOWER fan = follower |
| 21 | CAREEN | Watch over England’s top two go downhill in an uncontrolled manner (6) | GO DOWNHILL IN AN UNCONTROLLED MANNER / watch over CARE EN England top 2 |
| 22 | ITALIC | Sex with a novice starts in idyllic conventional style (6) | STYLE / (sex) IT + A + L (novice) + I,C (starts of idyllic conventional) |
| 23 | JAMMU | Heartily enjoy fantastic summers filming tours in this city (5) | CITY / Mid letters of enJoy fantAstic sumMers filMing toUrs |
| 26 | ELSE | In addition, there’s falafel service inhouse (4) | IN ADDITION THERE / falf(EL SE)rvice |
Scorecard
| Participant(s) Name | Total | GridScore | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Col Deepak Gopinath | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| D NARAYANA SWAMY | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Dave Williams | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Ganesh Nayak | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Himanshu Rajurkar | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Lakshmi Prakash | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Loks Subrahmanyam | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| LV | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Madhup Tewari | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Madhusudan H | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Max Jackson | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Mona Sogal | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| NARAYANAN R | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| R NAGENDRA PRASAD | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Ramki Krishnan | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Ranjani Srikanth | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| RATNAKUMAR V | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| samit kallianpur | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| santha | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Sparsh Sinha | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Supriya Mithal | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Tejas Siddharth | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| VENKATESAN P. | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Venkatraghavan S | 149 | 144 | 5 |
| Arvind Kannabiran | 148 | 143 | 5 |
| Ashit Hegde | 148 | 143 | 5 |
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | 148 | 143 | 5 |
| Ian VanderSchee | 148 | 143 | 5 |
| Prakash Arumugam | 148 | 144 | 4 |
| Ratna Rao | 148 | 144 | 4 |
| Veera Raghavan | 148 | 143 | 5 |
| Krishnan Anantheswaran | 136 | 131 | 5 |
Congrats to the 25 solvers who maxed the score and to every one who participated. Very well tried.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got a good score of 8.4. It got 5 perfect 10s (15% of those who rated). The lowest score was 6.
Favorite Clues: The Top 3 clues were
- Bar and church in a dubious network of transactions (10) – 15 votes
- I, Tom Hanks, as often as needed, will play a crypto pioneer (7,8) – 11 votes
- Heartily enjoy fantastic summers filming tours in this city (5) – 8 votes
Thanks Smasher for an interesting and novel theme. To manage a theme, NINA and pangram altogether and keeping the clues approachable was commendable and the response from our solvers has been really good.
Here is what our solvers said…
| Comments / Feedback on the puzzle |
|---|
| Wonderful grid |
| Top class construction. |
| enjoyable |
| Outstanding Grid, looked difficult o start, once started , no way to stop, Kudos to the setter. |
| Interesting concept. Lovely clues. |
| Theme AND nina AND pangram … for that I’ll excuse the couple of obscurities! Quality stuff. Only quibble – a couple of overly vague defs (e.g. ‘system’, ‘Shakira perhaps’). |
| Interesting grid |
| Beautiful! |
| Excellent puzzle with challenging wordplay. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Nice theme selection. Expecting more such grids |
| Interesting crossword on Cryptocurrency |
| Loved it |
| Very enjoyable grid and clues.Not familiar with theme but quite easy to get the Bonus and Nina . Learnt new stuff 🙂 |
| Why was I only allowed to give 3 of the 5 themed entries? Also wanted to include HASH and CAPER as themed entries. |
| Very Interesting Grid |
| Excellent grid. Good clues, especially nice letter bank clue for crypto pioneer. |
| Nicely Themed grid |
| Anno for 16A took some time to understand until I remembered Lowdown Letter Banks series of clues, 5D was difficult as the usage of the words were not familiar, 3D was a new word for me. Good clue construction, gave a good exercise for the mind. Nina was easy to find. Nice grid! |
| Nice puzzle |
| The title could have been more cryptic; perhaps MY ONE, anag of money. |
| Interesting theme..and some of the surfaces were really good. Enjoyed the puzzle |
| NICE |
| Enjoyable grid..Some very nice clues in there! |
| A new, and interesting theme |
| Nice puzzle |
| Nice puzzle |
| Very entertaining thematic puzzle |
| Doing a crossword after a long time so not sure if it was actually difficult but I found it hard 🙂 Good clues, once figured out. Wasn’t sure about 3 down. |
| Nice nina and theme |
| Nice grid. |
| Fairly Simple grid, reasonable surfaces, Bonus puzzles were too simple |
| Good entertainment. Some definitions are a bit debatable |
| NIL |
| the spoonerism didn’t work for me. imo the spoonerized part has to be a phrase in itself, not a charade. (that is of course, if my solve and annotation is correct and it is turn back/burn tack.) |