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| Solution Grid |
There were only 59 entries, of which only 35 were correct,
which scored by far the lowest in the first five slots (and the lowest I can
remember for a while full stop to be honest).
Puzzle
No
1
2 3
4
5
Total
Entries received
93
94 74
83 59
403
Correct entries
73
76 56
78 35
318
Success rate (%)
78.5
80.9 75.7
94 59.3
78.9
Slot 5: This puzzle produced copious comments and
lots of errors. Not
an easy puzzle to be sure, but once one planet was
discovered, the penny
dropped for a few. Almost half the clues produced
some sort of error, but
the greatest offender was 22dn, with 16 members
settling for NUTATES,
probably on account of the planetary theme of the
puzzle. But sadly,
NOTATES was called for.
May 5-2020: Sweet Listening by Eclogue (Eddie Looby & Keith Williams)
• Particularly liked SASSENACH & the use of "setter"
to clue PECTIN
in SUSPECTING. Suggest you might try to reduce the
use of obscure
words eg SEW (drain), MAG (chatter), WAR (worse),
THUS (censer).
Ian McKenzie
• Too hard for me. It's fi lled in, helped by
knowing of Holst's work
and having a Chambers dictionary, but no idea
what is going on in
about ten clues. Rob Moline
• Very enjoyable puzzle and interesting theme. Had
no idea of the
theme until I saw that JUPITER had to be an entry.
Ian
Thompson
• It is "suite" listening, indeed,
Gustav Holst's Planets
Suite. My
favourites are Jupiter and Mars. An extract from
Jupiter (called
"Thaxted") formed the basis for the
patriotic hymn I
Vow to Thee
My Country and was also, if I recall
correctly, the theme music for
the 1990 Rugby World Cup, World in Union. I enjoyed the clueing of
EMPIRIC, STRONGMEN and RAPTURE. I don't think the
integrity
of the puzzle would have suffered had 10 & 18ac
been indicated as
theme clues from the outset. I could not follow
the parsing of 23dn's
signpost answer MESSENGER – is it
("food") MESS+GREEN*? How
does "cloud" fi t into the defi nition?
In 28ac, does "communicating" =
IN TRUTH? In 25ac, is the superior time a GOLD
AGE? I had these
few residual queries but, on the whole, thank you
for an enjoyable
challenge referencing some favourite music. Andrew Miles
• Hope I got all the "entires" right. Roy Taylor
• Very clever concept, which appeared early when I
had to delete
JOLLITY to enter JUPITER. Not keen on uncommon
abbreviations
even if they are in Chambers. Len Colgan
• I learnt a lot about the planets from this! Tony Dobele
• For a long time this crossword made no sense. It
was not until I
worked out 'Holst' and then looked him up on the
internet that it all
clicked into place. This was a worthy Slot 7. Ulla Axelsen
• Liked EUROS, RAPTURE, SASSENACH. Max Roddick
• I found this very diffi cult and still don't
understand parts of it.
Fingers crossed! Ann Millard
• I was feeling very frustrated with this puzzle,
until a good friend
pointed me in the right direction. It all made
sense then, thank
you. Joan Smith
• A very clever puzzle. I wasn’t familiar with
Holst’s Planets Suite, so
it took a while to twig to the theme. I had
trouble parsing a couple
of the clues, so am not totally optimistic.
Thoroughly enjoyed the
process though. Julie Crowe
• Great theme, great clues I really enjoyed
solving this crossword
puzzle! Bev Cockburn
• When I couldn't solve 10across, and the only
word that would fi t
was JUPITER, I decided to write the name of a
planet for every clue
that didn't make sense to me. It seemed to work,
and led me to Holst
..... So at least I know those answers are right.
But, looking back, I
don't see the point of writing a clue only to
ignore it!?? Nea
Storey
• Most of the clues made no sense to me. When in
doubt I entered a
planet, as JUPITER was the only answer I could see
for 10ac!!
Anne Simons
• I found this one very hard and send it in with
fi ngers crossed!
Robyn McKenzie
• Great puzzle, and a great orchestral work! James Leaver
• Excellent fi rst class puzzle. Doreen Jones
•
Thank you for a Magical Mystery tour of the PLANETS. Ron Jarman
