Stats – We had 45 solvers completing and submitting the grid. Of those who submitted 22 managed to get the maximum possible score of 305.
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Here is the solution grid:
Annotations:
| Across | Answer | Annotation |
| 1 Reckon first coach with two conductors is behind schedule (9) | calculate | C AL CU LATE |
| 6 Massacred badly tough leaders left round (11) | slaughtered | TOUGH LEADERS – O |
| 12 Disallow notice outside with appeal to an outlaw (1,6) | a bandit | A(BAN)D IT |
| 13 Model is old and generous (7) | example | EX AMPLE |
| 14 Anticipate European Community to come out in favour of a settler (5) | expat | EXP (-EC+A) T |
| 15 Divided group buried outside without a right (11) | intersected | INTER(SECT)(-R)ED |
| 16 Freedom to choose small lines across the map (9) | latitudes | LATITUDE S |
| 17 Popular and more confident one covering risk (7) | insurer | IN SURER |
| 19 Prominent from meagre attempts (5) | great | Hidden |
| 20 Make use of vacation spot (6) | resort | DD |
| 23 Difficult day, wait for ends to smoothly disappear (5,4) | drift away | DAYWAITFR* |
| 25 Grand! Wordsworth’s image! (1,7) | a picture | CD |
| 26 Appreciate sarcasm (3) | dig | DD |
| 27 Cell electrode missing a link (4) | node | (-A) NODE |
| 28 Spot secondary batch (4) | blot | B LOT |
| 29 Imprison authority (4) | hold | DD |
| 30 Feedback from the chosen (4) | echo | Hidden |
| 32 Squeeze out of weekend (3) | eke | Hidden |
| 34 Beast missed a call in ideal condition (4,4) | best term | BE(-a)ST TERM |
| 37 All brown Aunt’s excited to take direction by Mr Flanders, say (9) | suntanned | AUNTS* NED |
| 40 Criticized, left inside in tatters dropped second (6) | flayed | F(-r+L)AYED |
| 41 Cracks in sheds the French vacated (5) | stabs | STAB(-le)S |
| 43 Atrocious in-house product (7) | heinous | HEINOUS* |
| 45 Outside ends of large box sent for Fiji auction contains basmati (exotic) (9) | extrinsic | Last letter Acrostic |
| 46 Without a doubt, rebuilt fare better (11) | irrefutable | REBUILTFARE* |
| 49 Student pursues concept? Perfect (5) | ideal | IDEA L |
| 50 Abnormal American girl takes ecstasy against the law (7) | illegal | ILL E GAL |
| 51 We get the chance in vessel after cycling tour (3,4) | our turn | >OURT> URN |
| 52 Journalist at last receives signal being sent out (4,7) | gets relayed | GETS RELAY ED |
| 53 Took action on stalk surrounding small pool (9) | responded | RE S POND ED. |
| Down | Answer | Annotation |
| 1 Explained process that turned butter to ghee (9) | clarified | DD |
| 2 Supported slim model (5) | leant | LEAN T |
| 3 Guarantee not above right reportedly (10) | underwrite | UNDER WRITE (~RIGHT) |
| 4 Moves directly to throw case (2,3,4,5) | as the crow flies | RA AS THE CROW (FLIES) |
| 5 Position before contract ends (5) | erect | ERE CT |
| 6 Cuban perhaps lost his head in defamation (7) | slander | (-i) SLANDER |
| 7 Sago a staple has mixed like a light spirit (2,4,2,1,5) | as pale as a ghost | SAGOASTPLEHAS* |
| 8 Visitors take ecstasy in blasts (6) | guests | GU(E)STS |
| 9 Party by blokes bar management (9) | treatment | TREAT MEN T |
| 10 Scold one over energy wasting deviation in flying visit (5,4) | rapid tour | RAP I D(-e)TOUR |
| 11 Information pools in sad state, possibly (4,4) | data sets | SADSTATE* |
| 18 Students leave upset over being snooped (5) | spied | SPI(-LL)ED |
| 21 Orderly way friend, to suppress a spasm (14) | systematically | SYSTEM (A TIC)ALLY |
| 22 Lunatic sells hot film on classic novel (4,2,3,5) | mill on the floss | SELLS HOT FILM ON* |
| 24 Snake notice and stop sign put back (5) | adder | AD DER< |
| 31 Kind of spirit in Jack’s party? (3,2) | can do | CAN DO |
| 33 Link between carnival cities pair so riot tipsy (5,2,3) | paris to rio | PAIRSORIOT* |
| 35 Do soldiers have specialist to cover implementation? (9) | enactment | EN(ACT MEN)T |
| 36 A destroyer like Hitler no one can be (3,6) | the killer | LIKEHITLER-I* |
| 38 Found record near emergency room corner a bit delayed (9) | discerned | DISC ER NE D |
| 39 Sacrifice not working, goofing up lost rook (8) | offering | OFF ER(-R)RING |
| 42 Joined condensed version skipping the beginning (7) | bridged | (-a)BRIDGED |
| 44 Question sick aptitude (1,5) | a skill | ASK ILL |
| 47 Sovereign yardstick (5) | ruler | DD |
| 48 007 jumps over bend fastened! (5) | bound | BO(U)ND |
Results:
| S.No. | NAME | SCORE |
| 1 | Anicha Reuban | 305 |
| 2 | Anirudh Sahni | 305 |
| 3 | Arvind Kannabiran | 305 |
| 4 | Ashit Hegde | 305 |
| 5 | Harish Kamath | 305 |
| 6 | Himanshu Rajurkar | 305 |
| 7 | Keith Williams | 305 |
| 8 | Lakshmi Prakash | 305 |
| 9 | Madhusudan Hanumantha Rao | 305 |
| 10 | Magi Rajagopalan | 305 |
| 11 | Max Jackson | 305 |
| 12 | Meera | 305 |
| 13 | Narayanan R | 305 |
| 14 | Nick Loader | 305 |
| 15 | Ratna Rao | 305 |
| 16 | Rengaswamy N. | 305 |
| 17 | Sandhya Paruchuri | 305 |
| 18 | Santha Ramachandran | 305 |
| 19 | Sohil | 305 |
| 20 | Suresh Dorbala | 305 |
| 21 | Tejas Siddharth | 305 |
| 22 | Venkatraghavan S. | 305 |
| 23 | Anantakrishnan N. | 304 |
| 24 | Dave Williams | 304 |
| 25 | Debasmita Basu | 304 |
| 26 | Jyothish B | 304 |
| 27 | Krishnan Anantheshwaran | 304 |
| 28 | Kumaresh K R | 304 |
| 29 | Lakshmi Vaidyanathan | 304 |
| 30 | Madhup Tewari | 304 |
| 31 | Mona Sogal | 304 |
| 32 | Mukundala Balasubramanyam | 304 |
| 33 | Prakash Arumugam | 304 |
| 34 | Raghavan S V | 304 |
| 35 | Ramki Krishnan | 304 |
| 36 | Sree Sree | 304 |
| 37 | Bhalchandra Pasupathy | 303 |
| 38 | Deepak Gopinath (Col.) | 303 |
| 39 | Diwakar Menon | 303 |
| 40 | Nagendra Prasad R. | 303 |
| 41 | Ranjani Srikanth | 303 |
| 42 | Venkatesan P. | 303 |
| 43 | Ian Vanderschee | 300 |
| 44 | Prasad RV | 293 |
| 45 | Rathnakumar V | 287 |
Congrats to the solvers who maxed the score and to every one who participated. Very well tried.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got a score of 7.8. It got 9 perfect 10s – i.e 20% of those who submitted thought it was perfect. The minimum score was 3.
Top 3 Clues: The most favorited clues were those for “A Picture” (9 votes), Offerring and Enactment (8 votes). 42 clues in the grid got atleast 1 vote each.
Thanks for the Jumbo puzzle Smasher. All the best as you continue your journey as a setter.
Comments on the Puzzle
1. Excellent
2. Very enjoyable puzzle with great clues.
3. Definitions need work generally, some good clues
4. Enjoyable puzzle with some cleverly crafted clues
5. Very nice cluing through out the puzzle. Enjoyable at the same time.
6. Some very good clues. Why are there so many answers that begin with the word “A”, and then “Mill in the Floss” is missing “The” at the beginning?
7. Good job in setting so many clues and yet keeping it challenging.
8. Not especially difficult, just a lot of it. There are however some issues with this grid, which given the lack of any other theme, which were all avoidable: a) dangling entries with only one checked letter at 27/30; b) 2×2 black blocks (which could be fixed by extending 5/17 and 43/47 and replacing the latter entries; c) use of non-(standard)-dictionary words or proper nouns and d) relying on preceding indefinite articles at 12/25/44. Don’t be afraid to ditch / relocate some of the longer insertions you start with if you end up painting yourself into a corner – the puzzle will be much the better for it. Clues were generally ok, but I’d avoid ones like 35d, where the first part of the wordplay is effectively just repetition of the definition.
9. Not really fond of the non phrases, such as ‘a bandit’, ‘a skill’, ‘the killer’, ‘paris to rio’, etc. Though I guess it must be hard to construct such a huge grid.
Also not a fan of some of the surfaces – especially ‘link between carnival cities pair so riot tipsy’.
The long clues, on the other hand, were enjoyable, especially the anagrams/ reverse anagrams.”
10. NC
11. there are several Aha ! moments !
12. Tedious grid with cluttered surfaces/ pos and root issues/contrived word- fit… like The Killer, A skill, A bandit, Our turn etc…
sorry to give this feedback but there have been some fantastic grids on this platform and would love to see the quality remain so.”
13. Making a 21-squared is hard. Props to the setter. Some very good clues. That said, the phrases of the form THE-something and A-something were jarring and some clues felt off, at least for the surface reading. 4D definitely has a word missing at the end.
14. Excellent grid. Good clues
15. 22d novel is :the mill on the floss”. otherwise an excellent mix of clue types.
16. Fairly straightforward puzzle.
17. Good one!
18. Great puzzle
19. A lot of nice clues
20. Solutions like A/BANDIT or A/SKILL etc really dont work, so I guess more time needs to be spent on proper grid fill
21. Nice grid! Got to know Mr Flanders better!
22. Enjoyed quite an easy stroll.
23. Good
24. Loved the clues
25. Quite easy and straightforward. Except 25a…not sure i got the clue!!
26. SUPER
27. Interesting grid
28. Nice puzzle
29. Use of non standard phrases as solution was a little offputting. But I am a big fan of (S)masher’s jumbo grids. A few unches were there, but I guess its for the size of the grid.
30. Enjoyed the grand feast. Lovely clues.
31. Maybe I failed to spot something clever that necessitated them, but the weird non-dictionary phrases, and answers like “a bandit”, “a picture”, “a skill”, along with two four-letter-words that only had one checked letter, really spoiled this for me. Sorry.
32. enjoyed thoroughly
33. VERY ENJOYABLE….LOVED IT
34. Superb. Awaiting 27sq by Masheress
35. VERY NICE!
36. Quite an enjoyable grid
37. Didn’t particularly enjoy this one. Some of the solution words, especially the ones with articles and ‘Paris-to-Rio’ appeared too contrived. Couldn’t parse a couple too – 25a and 34a – so, I’m not sure of those answers
38. Fairly entertaining grid
39. A mixed bag of clues, surface of several cues need improvement
40. Good attempt at setting a jumbo grid. Multi-word answers should be standard phrases – “a bandit”, “a skill”, “the killer” etc. are quite unnatural.
41. good grid, but found the non-phrase answers a bit annoying
42. Clues like OFFERING, which I completely adored, show me that this setter has some excellent things to … offer 😉 Many clues were frustratingly close to brilliant such as everything except ‘is’ in CALCULATE or the fact that THE KILLER is not a term you find in a dictionary even though the clue was superb. Speaking of terms not found in a dictionary, this was my biggest gripe, I guess, with things like ‘rapid tour’, ‘gets relayed’ and ‘best term’. There was also ‘a’ being attached as in various answers such as ‘a bandit’ which I could accept as a stylistic choice or even a thematic idea but would like to have known would be the case beforehand. Some wordplay was connected to the use of those particles in the answers themselves such as ‘act’ in enactment which, again, for me slightly spoiled an otherwise brilliant clue. A lot of surfaces didn’t really make sense to me as well. Still, a 21×21 is a fantastic achievement and, as I say, some incredible clues and ideas here, I just think a little bit more editing of wordplay and surfaces together with fairness regarding words chosen would have been even greater 🙂
43. Most clues felt easy from the solving point of view but many of them seemed to be contrived and didn’t have smooth surfaces. There are a lot of multiple-word answers which aren’t standard phrases.
44. Good effort with some clever clues, marred by many entries that are not valid crossword answers. This includes entries beginning with articles (assuming these answers are correct): “a bandit”, “a picture”, “a skill”, “the killer”, and several that aren’t phrases in their own right: “best term”, “gets relayed”, “Paris to Rio”, “rapid tour”.
45. Some of the clues are amazing , while some are a bit out of the way, my opinion