Stats: The puzzle page was loaded 552 times. 70 visitors had a go at it. 40 solvers completed both the puzzle and bonus form. 4 submitted the grid but not the bonus form. The remaining solved it partly. 32 solvers got the full score.
Loony Dance<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
BONUS QUESTIONS:
Q1: Rearrange the 12 circled letters in the filled grid to form 2 six-letter words that define the theme of the grid
ANS: HOLMES TITLES
Q2: For the identified theme from Q1, List at least 6 of the themed words
ANS: ANY 6 of SOLITARY, CLERK, PATIENT, DETECTIVE, SPECKLED, STUDENTS, THOR, BOHEMIA,CIRCLE
Q3: Rearrange the letters in the title of the puzzle to get the creator of the theme (2 words).
ANS: CONAN DOYLE
Annotations
| Across | Clue | Answer | Annotation |
| 1 | Hence, openers of LSG initially attempt to gather a single (8) | SOLITARY | SO + L I + TRY around A |
| 5 | Media lands up without energy to welcome medico (2-4) | CD-ROMS | COMES -E around D-R |
| 9 | Coordinate of basic sailing ship near Australia (8) | ABSCISSA | BASIC* SS + A |
| 10 | Goddess had to protect bird (6) | ATHENE | ATE around HEN |
| 12 | Extraordinary – one luxury car carrying large, basically unripe bananas (9) | IRREGULAR | I RR (luxury car) around (LARGE + U)* |
| 13 | Office assistant is troublesome heckler – dismiss that man! (5) | CLERK | (HECKLER -HE)* |
| 14 | Infection from a dirty place, say (4) | STYE | hp of sty |
| 16 | One getting knocked down at the end of an alley? (7) | SKITTLE | Cryptic def, ref to bowling alley |
| 19 | Tolerant of institute breaching copyright (7) | PATIENT | I inside PATENT |
| 21 | South African fighter losing vote (4) | BOER | BOXER (fighter) -X (vote) |
| 24 | Band leader leaves, cross (5) | RIDGE | BRIDGE(cross) -B |
| 25 | Edited his short tweet: “Or else!” (9) | OTHERWISE | (HIS TWEE OR)* |
| 27 | Tall footloose fellow in European city (6) | LONDON | LON(-g) + DON |
| 28 | Yank reel in camera (8) | AMERICAN | (INCAMERA)* |
| 29 | Cursed and ran (6) | DASHED | DD |
| 30 | Very first resistance story set in the Orient (8) | EARLIEST | R + LIE in EAST |
| Down | Clue | Answer | Annotation |
| 1 | Part of rheostat I carefully fixed (6) | STATIC | Hidden in rheo(STAT I C)arefully |
| 2 | Good man overcome by attraction for glitter (6) | LUSTRE | ST in LURE |
| 3 | Drawing activity in garden houses (5) | TYING | Hidden in activi(TY IN G)arden |
| 4 | Underdog rises over, essentially showing determination (7) | RESOLVE | LOSER << + oVEr |
| 6 | Sleuth is tense, killing fellow in buggy (9) | DETECTIVE | T replacing F in DEFECTIVE |
| 7 | “No fighting!” – outside bars offering food (8) | OMELETTE | O + MELEE around TT (bars) |
| 8 | Spotted American actor in snow vehicle (8) | SPECKLED | PECK in SLED |
| 11 | Tax rates frequently cut for cinema and theatre perhaps (4) | ARTS | alt letters in tAxRaTeS |
| 15 | So upset, finally, with present Head (9) | THEREFORE | (upse)T + HERE + FORE (head) |
| 17 | Wound in lip – reads incorrectly (8) | SPIRALED | Anagram of LIPREADS |
| 18 | Trainees on vacation dare to go through dangerous activities (8) | STUDENTS | D-E inside STUNTS |
| 20 | God trimmed prickly shrub (4) | THOR | THOR(-n) |
| 21 | Brief inclination to possess new home in ancient European kingdom (7) | BOHEMIA | BIA(-s) around HOME* |
| 22 | Greek enchantress having large ring (6) | CIRCLE | CIRCE around L |
| 23 | After exercise, fish counter provides healthy food (6) | PEANUT | PE + TUNA<< |
| 26 | River and mountain of a village (5) | RURAL | R + URAL |
Here’s the list of Top Scorers (For the full list, please check the Leaderboard in the Hall of Fame)
Out of 44 solvers, 32 got the full score. Each of the following scored 166 points (Grid Score – 156, Bonus – 10).
Aashwina Mouli
Al Sanders
Anantakrishnan N.
Arun Krishnan
Arvind Ramaswamy
Bhalchandra Pasupathy
Deepak Gopinath (Col.)
Harish Kamath
Ian VanderSchee
Jose A
Koteswar Rao
Lakshmi Prakash
Lakshmi Vaidyanathan
Madhup Tewari
Madhusudan H
Mona Sogal
Mukundala Balasubramanyam
Nagendra Prasad R.
Narayana Swamy D
Narayanan R
Nilesh Parmar
Prakash Arumugam
Ramesh Swaminathan
Rathnakumar V
Ratna Rao
Samit Kallianpur
Sandhya Paruchuri
Sparsh Sinha
Supriya Mithal
Tejas Siddharth
Venkatesan P.
Venkatraghavan S
Congrats to the toppers and to all the solvers who participated.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got an excellent rating of 8.88. It got 13 perfect 10s (33% of those who rated). The lowest rating was 6.
Favorite Clues: The Top clues were
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- Media lands up without energy to welcome medico (2-4) – 13 votes
- “No fighting!” – outside bars offering food (8) – 12 votes
- One getting knocked down at the end of an alley? (7) – 10 votes
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Enjoyable fare from Kriskross. I loved solving this puzzle themed on Sherlock Holmes, one of my favourite fictional characters. Kriskross makes it seem “Elementary”, but getting a theme nicely interwoven into the puzzle is no mean feat. Great fun. Keep ’em coming.
Here’s what our solvers said..
| Name | Comments / Feedback on the puzzle |
|---|---|
| Rathnakumar V | Simply Splendid, My fav author too, excellent grid having all the ingredients |
| Jose A | An hour well spent! Thank you 🙂 |
| Mukundala Balasubramanyam | Well knit super smooth grid! |
| Venkatesan P. | Brilliant clues as always. |
| Lakshmi Vaidyanathan | Lovely grid & theme . Enjoyed solving 🙂 |
| Ian VanderSchee | Excellent clues! Nice puzzle! |
| Sandhya Paruchuri | Good one! |
| Debasmita Basu | Excellent grid. Loved so many clues. |
| Madhup Tewari | The puzzle has really beautiful clues with great surface and not one superfluous word. Vintage Kriskross! |
| Venkatraghavan S | Lovely puzzle and surfaces from the champ. Helped that I am a mad Holmes fan. |
| Madhusudan H | Superb puzzle, enjoyed solving it. |
| Prakash Arumugam | Brilliant thematic puzzle with deceptively simple clues. . enjoyable |
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | Very interesting puzzle, lots of thematic elements in the clues as well. Entertaining clues with a good variety. ‘Themed’ entries however are only part of the titles and would not strictly qualify as ‘HOLMES TITLES’, a minor niggle though that does not interfere with the solving or enjoyment |
| Mona Sogal | Breezy puzzle, Fun theme- Grid was well-populated with the theme words- it took me some time to equate NO with O in Omelette- as usual an amazing puzzle by the champ |
| Sparsh Sinha | Loved it… Crisp clues and some mindbenders.. |
| Supriya Mithal | Very enjoyable grid,clues and concept. Loved the theme, and enjoyed the many cleverly done clues. |
| Arun Krishnan | Nice clues. Really enjoyed solving it. |
| Anantakrishnan N. | Excellent puzzle with a lovely theme |
| Nagendra Prasad R. | Reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes |
| Veera Raghavan | Good fodder for the bean |
| Aashwina Mouli | Very nice theme and puzzle . Lovely clues too with lovely misdirection |
| Al Sanders | Fun theme, nice clean grid and cluing |
| Ramesh Swaminathan | Lovely and smooth. Glorious theme. Had some trouble finishing top right corner rest were smooth. Enjoyed the feast. |
| Arvind Ramaswamy | Fun solve. Loved the theme! Slightly doubtful about 2 of my clue answers though. |
| Samit Kallianpur | Nice and enjoyable grid and theme. Smooth surfaces! |
| Tejas Siddharth | Bit tough to solve. Nice one |
| Harish Kamath | Nice |
| Nilesh Parmar | Super fun |
| Narayanan R | Nice grid & theme |
| Narayana Swamy D | Nice clues…Reminiscent of the evergreen whodunnit author |
| Ashit Hegde | A nice fairly straightforward grid ,uniformly good surfaces |
| Koteswar Rao | VERY NEAT |
| Max Jackson | A few convoluted clues; 5ac incomprehsible, 26ac and 16dn puzzling. Wikipedia provided the “adventures”. |