Stats The puzzle page was loaded over 350 times. 107 visitors had a go at it and 47 solvers managed to complete and submit. Of those who submitted, only 38 managed to get the full scores.
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No Brainer<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
Notes:
We had added a note (after publishing) that 13A uses the British spelling. However, points have been awarded for both the US and UK spellings.
The Clue for 16D was faulty and had one E missing in the anagram fodder. Although none of the solvers got this wrong or lost points for that, the error is regretted.
Annotations
| ACROSS | Clue | Answer | Annotation |
| 6 | Butler edges away, follows Rector and old magistrate (5) | REEVE | JEEVES – JS +R |
| 7 | Bowler Henry averaged miserably – no victory! (8) | HEADGEAR | H Averaged* -V |
| 10 | One girl wears loose plait as hairstyle (7) | PIGTAIL | Plait * around IG |
| 11 | Boy makes choice, shaving head over time for scientific field (7) | BIOTECH | B (-C) HOICE* Around T |
| 12 | Scrap dealer hounding leader of traders for a part of old sewing machine (7) | TREADLE | DEALER * behind T |
| 13 | Spooner’s peace and liberty (7) | LICEN(C/S)E | Spoonerism – silence to licence |
| 14 | Patriot’s new anti Stalin quote uncovered (11) | NATIONALIST | ANTI STALIN + O * |
| 19 | In a boisterous way unruly son grabs one flower, breaking off the head (7) | NOISILY | SON * AROUND I + (-L) ILY |
| 21 | First lady clutching a sign is one to be rescued from danger (7) | EVACUEE | EVE around A cue (sign) |
| 23 | Young at heart, lacking interest replied rudely in the beginning (7) | PRELUDE | REPLIED * – I +U |
| 25 | Perhaps, Bose is a guest lecturer (7) | SPEAKER | DD |
| 26 | Buffet waiters include Kelvin, the sport! (8) | WATERSKI | Waiters* around K |
| 27 | Not forthcoming, left out of legacy perhaps. (5) | CAGEY | Legacy*-l |
| DOWN | Clue | Answer | Annotation |
| 1 | Colour of paneer curry with dashes of elaichi garnish (8) | PEAGREEN | Paneer + E G * |
| 2 | Request of French chap has hint of desperation (6) | DEMAND | DE MAN D |
| 3 | Quartz cup one lost playing rugby final around the 1st of December(10) | CHALCEDONY | CHALICE-I , on y around D |
| 4 | Dirty piece of unwashed aubergine (4) | DAUB | HIPS |
| 5 | Local model , a truly footloose personality at heart (6) | TAVERN | T A VER(-Y) N |
| 6 | Standing about park avenue’s terminal (6) | REPUTE | RE+PUT+(-avenu)E |
| 8 | As stated- without main Italian dish! (7) | GNOCCHI | NO KEY HP |
| 9 | Son, they kept no margins – they can be fleeced! | SHEEP | S HE EP |
| 13 | He spiraled out of control with authority (10) | LEADERSHIP | HE SPIRALED * |
| 15 | Honour upstanding head of the university buried by family (7) | TRIBUTE | T U < INSIDE TRIBE |
| 16 | Crew leaving after fierce argument over designer’s transportation cost (8) | TRUCKAGE | ARGUMENT – MEN* AROUND CK (Error in Clue fodder – Missing an E) |
| 17 | Awkward when international writer rejected final contract (5) | INEPT | I PEN< T |
| 18 | Annual party finished sooner than expected (6) | YEARLY | Y EARLY |
| 20 | Cinema playing sci-fi film (6) | ICEMAN | CINEMA * |
| 22 | Firm, mature, frequently knacky (6) | AGENCY | AGE NCY |
| 24 | Singapore as the exhibiting point (4) | EAST | HIPS |
Scorecard (Top Scores) (For the full list, please check the Leaderboard in the Hall of Fame)
| Participant(s) Name | Score |
|---|---|
| Al Sanders | 145 |
| Anantakrishnan N | 145 |
| Arvind Ramaswamy | 145 |
| Ashit Hegde | 145 |
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | 145 |
| Binay Kumar Patra | 145 |
| Deepak Gopinath | 145 |
| Ganesh Nayak | 145 |
| Himanshu Rajurkar | 145 |
| Ian VanderSchee | 145 |
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | 145 |
| Kolluru Koteswara Rao | 145 |
| Lakshmi Prakash | 145 |
| LV | 145 |
| Max Jackson | 145 |
| Melissa McSeismal | 145 |
| Mona Sogal | 145 |
| Mukundala Balasubramanyam | 145 |
| Nagendra Prasad R | 145 |
| Narayana Swamy D | 145 |
| Narayanan R | 145 |
| Prakash Arumugam | 145 |
| Priya Shyam | 145 |
| Ramesh Swaminathan | 145 |
| Ramki Krishnan | 145 |
| Ranjani Srikanth | 145 |
| Ratna Rao | 145 |
| Ratnakumar V | 145 |
| Rhiannon Vivian-Bolt | 145 |
| Samit Kallianpur | 145 |
| Sandhya Paruchuri | 145 |
| Sparsh Sinha | 145 |
| Sree Sree | 145 |
| Tejas Siddharth | 145 |
| Veena Venkataraman | 145 |
| Veera Raghavan | 145 |
| Venkatesan P. | 145 |
| Venkatraghavan S | 145 |
Congrats to the 38 solvers who scored full and to all the solvers who participated.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got a good score of 8.13. It got 6 perfect 10s (13% of those who rated). The lowest score was 5.
Favorite Clues: The Top clues were
- Bowler Henry averaged miserably – no victory! (8) – 13 votes
- First lady clutching a sign is one to be rescued from danger (7) – 12 votes
- One girl wears loose plait as hairstyle (7) – 11 votes
- Spooner’s peace and liberty (7) – 11 votes
- Perhaps, Bose is a guest lecturer (7) – 11 votes
Thanks to Ambrosia for an enjoyable teaser with many great surfaces. Can see from the comments below that our solvers enjoyed it as much as we did. Looking forward to more puzzles from her.
| Comments / Feedback on the puzzle | |
|---|---|
| Lakshmi Prakash | Easy puzzle but a delightful one. |
| Ratnakumar V | Another easy grid ,but nice clues, ”NO BONUS is a bonus …………..Many anagrams too. |
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | Enjoyed the solving experience. |
| Mona Sogal | Lovely puzzle ..great surfaces 🙂 |
| Nagendra Prasad R | Enjoyable Crossword. |
| N Rengaswamy | No specific comment. Easy one. Enjoyed solving. |
| Sandhya Paruchuri | Enjoyable one! |
| Veena Venkataraman | Smooth surfaces. Enjoyable grid |
| Avtaar | Nice one. Clear Wordplay. On the easier side but good enjoyment |
| Venkatesan P. | A few tricky clues, enjoyable though. |
| Veera Raghavan | Nice and easy-flowing. |
| Sree Sree | |
| Nilesh Parmar | Nice and easy |
| Sreelakshmi | The title might be due to its simplicity, but I found the simplicity to have a certain level of elegance – the detail and care given to create smooth surfaces stand out and gifted me just a little bit of welcome challenge. It felt like this puzzle titled ‘no-brainer’ must have taken a significant amount of brains to construct and conceive, thank you formy fastest completion yet (I think) |
| Santha | Nice grid. |
| Venkatraghavan S | Good stuff. As always try and improve surfaces |
| Binay Kumar Patra | Very chic grid to solve |
| Tejas Siddharth | Nice puzzle. Unfortunate about the anno for truckage, but not a big deal. |
| Ganesh Nayak | Pleasant solve! |
| Ramesh Swaminathan | Smooth solve lots of anagrams made it relatively easier. |
| Ashit Hegde | Fairly easy puzzle nearly lived up to it’s title |
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | Well put together and quite straightforward. The spoonerism entry can be spelt in two ways, always better to avoid such ambiguity. Some indicators I personally wouldn’t agree with, e.g. ‘party finished’ for ‘y’, even if the intent is obvious |
| Samit Kallianpur | Simple and nice grid! IMHO, some last letter selection indicators could be better..like in 3d, Rugby final isn’t y. Rugby’s final =y or Final of rugby = y. 18d, “party finished” is not y. Finish of party = y. |
| Anantakrishnan N | Nice |
| Ramki Krishnan | Smooth puzzle with some nice clues. |
| Narayana Swamy D | Nice clues with good surfaces |
Other Comments (names withheld)
| Comments / Feedback on the puzzle |
|---|
| Great grid. A bit tricky to upload a screengrab on a mobile. |
| Simple and elegant grid |
| Enjoyable grid. |
| Good |
| Nice, fresh fill, good cluing |
| Nice |
| Thanks for keeping it simple ! |
| Why the requirement for the screenshot? Do you get too people cheating? |
| Nice puzzle with some clues not immediately gettable, but ultimately quite easy. |
| Nice easy puzzle for a Sunday morning |
| easy one |
| I enjoyed this grid as there was a good mix of different types of clues, and the difficulty level was perfect for me – a good challenge but not impossible! The only clue that didn’t work for me was 8D HP of ‘gnocchi’ |
| Happy to solve. Keep them coming |
| Nice and easy grid.. some clues i found a bit off.. could not anno properly |
| Fun! A few clues that I’d tweak a bit: • For me, WATERSKI could be the equipment or the verb, but the sport has to be WATERSKIING. • I’d enumerate 1D as (3,5) or (3-5) rather than (8). • I’d like a DBEI in 7A.• The “no key” homophone doesn’t work for me in 8D; I say GNOCCHI with an /ɲ/, not an /n/. |