Flying Solo – Solutions, Annotations & Resuls

Stats -We had a record 34 submissions for this puzzle. Of those who submitted, 28 got the full score of 30. A majority of the people managed to answer at least one if not both of the bonus questions asked as well..

Here’s the Solution grid

We had asked solvers to provide answers to the following at the time of submission.

1. Annotate Clue 6D.
2. Annotate Clue 26D.

The answers to these two Questions can be seen from the detailed Annotations below.

Here are the Annotations.

Across:

8 Man left message unwritten (4)(-M) ORAL
9 Pa was slyly manipulated to become intimate (5-5) (PA WAS SLYLY)*
10 A person ,terribly annoyed,struck daughter (6) (ANNOYED – D)*
11 My need is, somehow making an impression (5,3) (MY NEED IS)*
12 Container with a brass instrument (4) TUB A
13 Duty comes after mobile , beer & TV for man , perhaps (10) ( BEER TV)* RATE
17 Gold becoming scarce,ultimately masked vigilante gets nothing (4)ZORRO – OR + E
18 Sound somewhat ridiculous in retrospect (5)REV T
19 Attend theatre regularly at King’s (4) tHeAtRe K
20 Pleasure? Not exactly dear sir, its an event for charity (4-6) FUN (DEAR SIR)*
22 Model working at Elle primarily has style (4) T ON E
23 Say ,Afghan’s drunken revel in bed (8) CO( REVEL)*T
27 Possibly the most pleasant folk (6) THE* NIC(-E)
28 Depressed drummer lost heart, made a horrible din (4,6) BLUE {DRU(-M)MER}*
29 Ate a luscious stuffed duck (4) T

Down:

1 Late 19th century style tar? (3,7) REVERSE ANAGRAM
2 Ordeal at sea followed by celebration-found fabulous land! (2,6) (ORDEAL)* DO
3 Start off meal with physicist from Italy or old Burkina Faso (5,5) (-S)UPPER VOLTA
4 Attractive girl’s with the French man (4) G LA M
5 Extremely holy man’s religious song (4) HolY MaN
6 The Reverend caught a glimpse of the girl’s cable (6) Spoonerism Saw Her
7 Blanched and salted ham yesterday for starters (4) Acrostic
14 Tosses stones (5) DD
15 Maybe Chuck Senior’s fruit ? (10) DD/CD Ref Chuck Berry
16 Harsh, Tyra and Nick- all scratching bottoms (10) TYRa ANd NICk ALl
19 Perhaps espressos for celebrities? (8) DD/CD HOT SHOTS
21 Around lunchtime,put off person who eats less to lose weight (6) D(I)ETER
24 Performing with extremely lovely individual (4) ON LY
25 Approve of boy hiding uniform (4) LA(U)D
26 Draw round diagram initially to show trend (4) TI(D)E

Here is the scorecard (sorted by score and then in the order of submissions received)

Congrats to Kishore Rao, who’s maintained his position at the top of the current leaderboard with another winning entry.

16 people rated the puzzle as “Excellent” and 18 rated it “Good”. 22 out of 30 clues in the grid got picked atleast once in the top 3 favorites voted by the solvers. The clue for “Fund Raiser” was picked by 19 out of 34 solvers, as one of the favorites. Coverlet. Vertebrate, Elderberry, Ethnic, Tyrannical, Hawser and Hot Shots were among other popular clues.

Thanks a lot to Mythical (Supriya) for Flying Solo with this fun puzzle. Supriya has blossomed into an expert at weaving together wonderful surfaces that make it a pleasure to solve her grids..

Did you enjoy the puzzle? Do you have any feedback for us or for the setter. Do comment in the blog and let us know.