Stats: The puzzle page was loaded 428 times. 57 visitors had a go at it. 50 solvers completed both the puzzle and bonus form. The remaining 7 solved it partly or fully but did not submit. 38 solvers got the full score.
Metrophile<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
BONUS QUESTIONS:
List five theme words, sorted in Alphabetical order
ANS: Any five of ATHENS, BALI, BARCELONA, BRUSSELS, BUSAN, GENOA, KIEV, LONDON, MUMBAI, OSLO, PARIS, RENO, RHODES, ROME, SAN JOSE and TAMPA
Annotations
| Ref. | Clues | Solutions | Annotations |
| 8A | Experts feel sorry about monarch’s wealth (10) | PROSPERITY | PROS PITY around ER |
| 9A | Capital of Czechoslovakia (4) | OSLO | czechOSLOvakia |
| 11A | A doctor claimed I concealed bottles (5) | MEDIC | claiMED I Concealed, “bottles” is the containment indicator |
| 12A | In bed is a pet snake, coiling to make space for others (4,5) | STEPASIDE | rev containment, bED IS A PET Snake< |
| 13A | Oversized jeans worn around the capital of Silicon Valley (3,4) | SANJOSE | jeans worn=JEANS* around oversized=OS |
| 14A | Toss had Mumbai Indians in good cheer (7) | SMILING | SLING around MI |
| 16A | Outlaws ousted the leaders of ancient historical city (5) | PARIS | PARI(-ah)S |
| 18A | Fight to curb river water treatment (3) | SPA | SPAR without R |
| 20A | Sunbathe abroad, after leaving the South Korean city (5) | BUSAN | anag SUNBATHE – THE |
| 21A | One who cancels part of westbound trek overseas (7) | REVOKER | rev containment, tREK OVERseas |
| 24A | Popular song left Swedish pop group with a million (2,5) | LABAMBA | L ABBA with A M |
| 26A | Don’t allow celebrated entrepreneur to enter California club (9) | BARCELONA | BAR ELON in CA |
| 27A | Inclined to take mother around a coastal city (5) | TAMPA | rev APT aroud MA |
| 29A | Some compare notes, some gamble here (4) | RENO | compaRE Notes |
| 30A | Exceptionally nice places where writers may be found (6,4) | PENCILCASE | NICEPLACES* |
| 1D | Plans to retract unwanted mail (4) | SPAM | MAPS< |
| 2D | Student near lecturer’s city (6) | LONDON | L ON DON |
| 3D | False pledge to wear glasses (8) | SPECIOUS | IOU in SPECS |
| 4D | Unscrupulous sublessor showed no love for historic city (8) | BRUSSELS | anag SUBLESSOR – O |
| 5D | Capital soon to be put in cash, essentially (6) | ATHENS | THEN in cASh |
| 6D | I managed sprains without pain-killers (8) | ASPIRINS | SPRAINS* around I |
| 7D | Timeless metro, perhaps (4) | ROME | anag &LIT, METRO* – T |
| 10D | Airline left Indonesia’s top tourist destination (4) | BALI | BA L I |
| 13D | Wonderful to drink beer every now and then (5) | SUPER | SUP bEeR |
| 15D | Agonise about losing one’s sail (5) | GENOA | anag AGONISE – IS |
| 17D | Always torn about showing adoration (8) | REVERENT | RENT around EVER |
| 19D | Waste of time having no date for marriage (8) | ALLIANCE | DALLIANCE – D |
| 20D | Redesigned a lab kit by withdrawing one that’s used by young parents (4-4) | BABYTALK | anag ALABKITBY – I |
| 22D | Heads of key investments exited venture capital (4) | KIEV | first letters |
| 23D | He colonized a Greek island (6) | RHODES | DD |
| 25D | Where we get to see Bollywood’s note about topless dance (6) | MUMBAI | MI around (-r)UMBA |
| 26D | Place to drink and loudly throw up (4) | BARF | BAR F |
| 28D | Bill has to stay on the couch (4) | ABED | AD around BE |
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 – 149, Bonus – 5)
Anantakrishnan N.
Ashit Hegde
Bhalchandra Pasupathy
Deepak Gopinath (Col.)
Ian VanderSchee
Lakshmi Prakash
Madhup Tewari
Max Jackson
Mona Sogal
Nagendra Prasad R.
Narayana Swamy D
Nilesh Parmar
Prakash Arumugam
Ramki Krishnan
Rathnakumar V
Samit Kallianpur
Sohil Bhagat
Sparsh Sinha
Venkatesan P.
Venkatraghavan S
Melissa McSeismal
Al Sanders
Narayan Mandyam
Arvind Kannabiran
Arvind Ramaswamy
Mukundala Balasubramanyam
Ranjani Srikanth
Hawk
Ramesh Swaminathan
Rengaswamy N.
Narayanan R
Aashwina Mouli
Anirudh Sahni
Danuta Rosendorff
Harish T K
Magi Gopalan
Steve Gunter
Veena Venkataraman
Congrats to the toppers and to all the solvers who participated.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got an excellent rating of 8.42. It got 9 perfect 10s (18% of those who rated). The lowest rating was 6.
Favorite Clues:Many people had chosen more than 3 clues. The Top clues were
- Don’t allow celebrated entrepreneur to enter California club (9) – 17 votes
- Exceptionally nice places where writers may be found (6,4) – 17 votes
- In bed is a pet snake, coiling to make space for others (4,5) – 13 votes
It is great to have Textrous back and what a lovely come-back grid that was an absolute pleasure to solve. Looking forward to his second grid that is coming up later this year.
Here’s what our solvers said..
| Name | Comments / Feedback on the puzzle |
|---|---|
| Dr S Venkatesh | Difficulty level of cryptic clues could have been raised a notch or two. |
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | Metros accommodated beautifully. |
| Mona Sogal | Delightful grid- smooth surface stories- perfect |
| NARAYAN MANDYAM | LOVELY |
| RATNAKUMAR V | Lovely simple |
| Sohil | Great puzzle with super smooth surfaces. Particularly liked 12A and 24A. 26A also induced a nice chuckle. |
| Venkatraghavan S | Lovely grid with superb surfaces. Too many favourites to list so stopped at 3 clues. 🙂 |
| Al Sanders | Nice puzzle, lots of theme content, no overly obscure entries. I assume the bonus form asked us to pick any 5 out of what seemed to be 15 theme entries? That wasn’t as clear as it could have been. |
| Anirudh Sahni | Not difficult, but elegant and entertaining clues, enjoyable theme. Some surprising and impressive letter combinatorics. |
| Arvind Kannabiran | fun puzzle |
| BHALCHANDRA PASUPATHY | Nice, simple puzzle. Great effort in including so many cities into the grid. I think the bonus question could be interpreted in more than one way, wouldn’t be surprised if this gives rise to some disputes |
| Lakshmi Vaidyanathan | Nice to see Textrous back in action. Enjoyed solving . Thanks VR 🙂 |
| N. Rengaswamy | Enjoyed solving |
| R NAGENDRA PRASAD | NICE CITY TOUR. Going round the world |
| Sandhya Paruchuri | Neat clues! |
| Steve Gunter | This puzzle was fairly easy for this American solver. Steve Gunter in Raleigh, NC |
| Veena Venkataraman | Nice theme. 7D was a brilliant clue! |
| ARVIND RAMASWAMY | Loved many clues (neat surfaces). Nice and easy. Had great fun solving. |
| ASHIT HEGDE | Overall good surfaces but a bit too easy. |
| Madhup Tewari | Beautiful clues and a very enjoyable puzzle. |
| Madhusudan H | Good puzzle |
| Max Jackson | An impressive numer of cities fitted in. |
| NARAYANAN R | Good one |
| P. Venkatesan | Nice grid. The setter was able to fit as many as 15 metropolitan cities in the grid. Great! |
| Prakash Arumugam | Clues with a very nice surface. Enjoyable dolve |
| Ramesh Swaminathan | Smooth solve cool clues and easy bonus. Pleasure to solve. |
| Ramki Krishnan | Enjoyable grid with very smooth clues. |
| Samit Kallianpur | Good one! |
| Veera Raghavan | Good clueing, difficult to select favourites. |
| D Narayana Swamy | Nice clues |
| KOTESWARA RAO | EASY TO SOLVE. |
| N Anantakrishnan | Nice puzzle |
| Aashwina Mouli | Good grid . Nice to do a textrous grid after ages . |
| Harish T K | Good Puzzle |