Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

buzzb - I couldn't find a mirror for the rotations.

Turast. All the answers should be in upper case but letters oriented and placed according to the transformation. It does not matter that some are upside down, mirrored or both. The puzzle is so clever because crossing answers share the same orientation.

Sorry - meant letters of crossing answers. For example an ew A is the same as a normal A. A ns A is the same as a reflected A but both are upside down. Thus a an A could be a crossing letter of a ns down clue and a reflected across clue and will be written upside down.

I think it is worth taking the time to complete the grid properly if only to get a full appreciation of how clever it is.

The cold solving was tedious, especially as it was a long time before anything could be entered in the grid with any certainty. Once that was done it was possible to work out a few of the stragglers. I found the easiest way to sort out the various orientations was to write A to Z (normal), then underneath A to Z (rotated), followed by east/west, then north/south, so it was easier to see which letters were altered by their orientation and which stayed the same. Well done anyone who has finished!

I said in my original posting that I didn't really enjoy the puzzle (because of the amount of cold solving), but I didn't say or impy that it wasn't a good puzzle. The clues are good, and some are excellent, and the theme, such is it is, is unusual and spatially interesting.

The one aspect that I didn't find particularly hard once I had a toe-hold on the grid was the entry method. Initiallly I entered al answers normally to complete the grid. After that the easiest thing to do is use a second grid and enter all the normal entries (in upper case), then rotate the grid 180 degrees and enter the rotation entries as if they were normal entries. This enables one to see how some letters in crossing entries from the other two groups appear. In the remaining cells a few letters need careful consideration, such as F, G, N, R, S.

I didn't use a mirror, but it's useful for a final check in some cases.

I have 34 drunken cells. After all that effort I should hate to have missed one. Have I ?

I make it 35, but I wouldn't guarantee I haven't made an error.

Reading left to right column by column I have the following number of abnormal letters in each column:

2 2 5 4 5 4 5 3 0 3 0 2 = TOTAL 35

Thank you murky. I had missed the legs-in-the-air drunkard on the floor just before he went blue.