Stats: The puzzle page was loaded 594 times. 64 visitors had a go at it and 43 solvers completed and submitted the puzzle (of which 41 solvers completed the bonus form). The remaining 21 solved it partly or fully but did not submit. 30 solvers got the full score.
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Illusory Spirit<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
BONUS QUESTIONS:
Q1.Identify the first theme character who is defined by the wordplay “Murderous maniac eight chasing chap with bird (8,3,8)” ANS: MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN
Q2. Identify the second theme character who is defined by the wordplay “ Hag shot two elks with it getting fired casually (3,5,3,5)” ANS: THE GHOST WHO WALKS
Q3. Identify the connection between the two characters (3,4) ANS: LEE FALK
Q3. Any 5 of 9 themed words in the grid ANS: COBRA, HIMALAYAS, PATROL, HERO, LEVITATE, SKULL, KARMA, DEVIL, JUNGLE
Annotations
| REF. | CLUE | SOLUTION | ANNOTATION |
| 7A | Poisonous creeper starting to bloom inside my apartment’s entrance (5) | cobra | B(loom) inside (fills) COR(My!) + A(partment). Def: Poisonous creeper |
| 8A | Wandering Lama and yak mostly found in this timeless range (9) | Himalayas | Anagram (wandering) of (LAMAYA(-K)* inside -t(HIS). Def: Range |
| 10A | Watch slick character smuggling drug out (6) | Patrol | PAT(Slick)+ROLE(character)-E(drug). Def: Watch |
| 11A | Ducks trapped in banks of Nelson let off around midday (8) | noontime | O,O(ducks) inside (trapped in) N(….)N(banks for edges)+EMIT(let off) <<<(around). Def: Midday |
| 12A | Sluggish male worker gets on at last (8) | stagnant | STAG(Male) ANT(Worker) around(gets) -o(N) (at least). Def: Sluggish |
| 13A | Not a middle-of-the-road star (4) | hero | middle of THEROAD is HEROA-A(not A). Def: Star |
| 15A | State about to track info relating to evolution (7) | genetic | CITE(state)<<<(about) behind(tracking) GEN(info) . Def: Relating to evolution |
| 17A | Congo ingeniously keeps progressing (7) | ongoing | Telescopic. cONGO INGeniously Indcator : keeps Def: Progressing |
| 20A | Atlanta’s leading pitcher is out of sync (4) | ajar | A(tlanta) JAR(pitcher). Def: Out of sync |
| 22A | Suspend officer grabbing opera heroine’s backside (8) | levitate | LT(officer) around (grabbing) EVITA (opera) + heroin(E). Def: Suspend |
| 25A | Harry wears shirt with crests of emerald and ruby – he is about to become a major, perhaps? (8) | teenager | NAG(harry) inside TEE+ E(merald)+R(uby). Def: DBE He is abut to become a major, perhaps? |
| 26A | Rent from college handled by big city (6) | cranny | C(ollege)+RAN(handled)+NY(big city). Def: Rent |
| 27A | Abuse instrument by fiddling on it (9) | violation | VIOLA(instrument)+ONIT*(fiddling). Def: Abuse |
| 28A | Head of fried mollusk, doctor spat out (5) | skull | Anagram (fried) of MOLLUSK*-MO(doctor). Def: Head. |
| 1D | Policewoman charged errant associate (9) | copartner | COP(policewoman)+ERRANT*(chanregd). Def: Associate |
| 2D | Master fraudster is put off (8) | prorogue | PRO(master)+ROGUE(fraudster). Def: Put off |
| 3D | Tidying up, standing (7) | dignity | Anagram TIDYING*. (Indicator up). Def: Standing |
| 4D | Face of capuchin monkey, dropping head, nursing child, in stone (8) | cabochon | C(apuchin) + BABOON(monkey)-B(head of baboon) around(nursing) CH(chiild). Def: Stone |
| 5D | Attendant’s emptied tote kept in women’s carriage (6) | waiter | T(..)E inside W(omen’s) AIR(carrage). Def: Attendant |
| 6D | Akram’s tricky action (5) | karma | Anagram (‘s tricky) of AKRAM*. Def: Action |
| 9D | Botanical garden preserves plant with no roots or leaves (4) | alga | Telescopic botanic(AL GA)rden Def: Plant with no roots or leaves |
| 14D | Poles visiting European country checking religious books right away (9) | instantly | NS (Poles) inside (visiting) ITALY (European country) around (checking) NT (religious books). Def: Right away |
| 16D | Doctor trapped in raging flood (8) | irrigate | RIG(doctor) inside (trapped in) IRATE (raging). Def: Flood |
| 18D | The Bushes in Australia exchanged bucks at Melbourne’s centre (8) | outbacks | Anagram (exchanged) of (BUCKSAT)+Melb(O)urne. Def: The Bushes in Australia |
| 19D | Trumpet about wild animal catching a rector (7) | clarion | C(about) A LION(wild animal) around (catching) A R(ector) |
| 21D | Labyrinth in Uganda’s capital featured by song I belted out (6) | jungle | U(ganda) inside(featured by) JINGLE(song) -(belted out) I |
| 23D | Nothing comes out of, say corruption (4) | vice | VOICE(say)-O(nothing). Def: Corruption |
| 24D | Purveyor of 23 stayed over (5) | devil | LIVED(stayed)<<<(over). Def: Purveyor of 23(23d is vice). |
Here’s the list of Top Scorers (For the full list, please check the Leaderboard in the Hall of Fame)
Each of the following scored 154 points (Grid Score = 144 and Bonus points =10)
Anuradha Anand
Arvind Ramaswamy
Ashit Hegde
Bhalchandra Pasupathy
Deepak Gopinath (Col.)
Harish T.K.
Himanshu Rajurkar
Ian VanderSchee
Jyothish Balakrishnan
Koteswar Rao
Lakshmi Prakash
Lakshmi Vaidyanathan
Madhusudan H
Mona Sogal
Mukundala Balasubramanyam
Narayanan Rangamani
Nicholas Loader
Raj Jayaram
Ramesh Swaminathan
Ramki Krishnan
Ranjani Srikanth
Ratna Rao
Samit Kallianpur
Sandhya Paruchuri
Sparsh Sinha
Srinivas Venkatesh
Supriya Mithal
Tejas Siddharth
Veena Venkataraman and
Venkatraghavan S.
Congrats to the toppers and to all the solvers who participated.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got an excellent score of 8.95. It got 11 perfect 10s (27% of those who rated). The lowest score was 7.
Favorite Clues: The Top clues were
- Poisonous creeper starting to bloom inside my apartment’s entrance (5) – 14 votes
- Wandering Lama and yak mostly found in this timeless range (9) – 12 votes
- Suspend officer grabbing opera heroine’s backside (8) – 12 votes
- Sluggish male worker gets on at last (8) – 11 votes
Thanks Avatar for a brilliant grid with a cleverly blended theme. It was a trip down memory lane for many solvers and myself and finding all the theme words was as much fun as solving the grid itself.
Here’s what our solvers said..
| Name | Comments / Feedback on the puzzle |
|---|---|
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | Childhood heros beautifully immortalised. |
| Lakshmi Prakash | Very nice grid |
| Mona Sogal | Lovely grid… wonderful childhood memories 😍 |
| Mukundala Balasubramanyam | Smooth flowing grid |
| Rathnakumar V | Outstanding Grid. Brought back memories of my school day comics. |
| Sandhya Paruchuri | Easy and entertaining! |
| Srinivas Venkatesh | Excellent wordplay – often misleading |
| Veera Raghavan | Very nice puzzle. |
| Al Sanders | Fun puzzle, challenging but nothing too obscure, enjoyed the theme as well |
| Ashit Hegde | Many devious clues, nice surfaces, great satisfaction in completing the puzzle |
| Binay Kumar Patra | First time jitters gradually evanesced in course of solving the grid. Identifying theme was also a matter of concern. |
| Harish T.K. | Great Theme |
| Ian VanderSchee | Took me a LONG time to figure out the endgame, as I had never heard of either one of the characters, and only the wordplay was provided. Otherwise, a very fun solve with very fun clues. |
| Nagendra Prasad R. | THANKS FOR REMINDING THE GROWING UP DAYS |
| Narayana Swamy D | Very nice clues had to recall teenage days of reading cartoons |
| Narayanan Rangamani | super |
| Neelima Rai | Enjoyed remembering Phantom and solving the puzzle very much |
| Nicholas Loader | Excellent grid. If you want to know all the nitty gritty nitpicking by picky Nick (Loader) you can pm me haha. Good fun. Many great wordplays and surfaces. Only wordplay qualms were charged as anagrind and state = cite. Otherwise perfect 🙂 Loved learning new words. Maybe slightly harder would be nice but loved the challenge of the bonus especially (and finding all nine would probably do me in) 😀 |
| Ramesh Swaminathan | Thanks for the tricky one SSV. Full of surprises, like the first theme character and some very clever clues packs a punch like the 2nd character. Some innovative anagrinds too – up and charged we become visualising some of the clues (e.g. 14D, 19D, 21D, 11A ). Bonus is a mini grid in itself and made me smile. |
| Ramki Krishnan | Lovely themed grid about two of my favourite comic strips. Brought back lot of memories! Too many nice clues – picking 3 was difficult. |
| Supriya Mithal | Challenging clues and enjoyable grid , I liked the theme brings back childhood memories |
| Veena Venkataraman | Interesting theme, the title was good hint |
| Venkatraghavan S. | Super grid and theme. |
| Arvind Ramaswamy | Loved it!! The theme and the Grid… Cracking the theme was more fun actually! |
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | Interesting and engaging puzzle with clever clues. Not sure if ‘bushes’ is an appropriate term for pluralising ‘the bush’ (ref OUTBACKS). An incidental observation is that the puzzle and theme are really 2 different games, the theme doesn’t naturally emerge from the puzzle but only by solving the standalone bonus questions. |
| Koteswar Rao | GREAT GRID. |
| Lakshmi Vaidyanathan | Nice puzzle |
| Max Jackson | The theme took some research. I’m not sure I’ve identified theme words correctly, but they all seem somehow relevant.7ac. Do snakes creep? |
| Raj Jayaram | Nice and smooth |
| Samit Kallianpur | Good one! |
| Tejas Siddharth | Why is ‘not a’ in 13a? Slightly tough puzzle |