Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

i was equally convinced by my mistake in the opposite corner, wigwam (it involved putting 't' into a microwave!).

Coming very late to this one. Filled the grid and found the two messages ... but one of the groups is ambiguous, to say the least. Are we looking at five solid bodies, or the five mythical bodies after whom they are named? And I can see nothing moving me forwards to the central cell or obeying the two instructions. A hint would be welcome. (I thought it might be a pangram, but clearly it isn't.)

cockie - i started by looking for something in the grid that would justify the need for the 2nd message, and even though this was the wrong approach, i soon noticed an interesting repetition.

Got my two messages and it hit me - is the central cell meant to be filled already? I had it as an extension of one of the normal answers. If not, I have no idea how I've filled a grid and got two coherent messages out of it.

What to do with those messages eludes me still, but I'm still staring for now.

no, wigwam - it's still empty after the grid fill.

Oh bugger, I've messed up 35-44 something royal then!

I had it as the first letter for that answer, which I think can only be one thing but I'm not vastly open to suggestion...

I had it as a (2,4) with a 3 letter word around another 3, seemed to fit very well bar the middle cell.

Now I'm very confused, as like I said, my two messages otherwise are coherent and everything else fits :|

i suppose it can't hurt plotting one answer - starting from 35, go to 30, go to 43, go to end.

I'd found what I think I'm meant to be highlighting and added a central letter, the second instruction makes sense as a result of this revelation.

The pathing you described confused me further until I realised I'd been a cretin about another answer in the region and my answer for 35 was right all along.

Considering all of the hinted synonyms make sense, I think I'm done, but my resulting pattern doesn't really look like any images I can find, but can't seem to be anything else. Think I'm just at the stage of being blinded by a struggle to finish...

Congratulations to those who have cracked this one. I’ve pretty well given up on it after solving quite a number of clues and getting so little help from the grid to solve the harder ones. It’s clear from this thread that many of the clues are difficult and obscure, and that the endgame is far from straightforward.

In response to Quisling #15, I like his suggestion, but I have two things to add. One is that it should not be necessary to give explicit answers except on very rare occasions. This thread illustrates how skilled forumites are at giving hints, leaving the questioner to derive some satisfaction from completing the solution. The other comment is that if people want to give answers by encoding them using a Caesar cipher, I would suggest they use a shift of one letter only. This would serve the purpose of disguising the answer but could be decoded quickly without the need for an online tool.

Hi Wigwam, I was waiting for someone to give a brilliant explanation of the final pattern too. It sort of looks like it must be something - Eye of Sauron, tarot hanged man, lizard or whatever. I suspect it just is what it is.