Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Really struggling with this one. Missing about a dozen answers including the first 6 alphabetically. Might be the first one in a long time I have to give up on entirely. Carte blanche with 6 unclued and no "only four 9-letter entries" to make an unambiguous starting point seems unfair. I have 26ac and 26dn clues solved but don't know which way they go. In a bit of a huff!

Kirk, Thanks for that hint. I'm struggling a bit with this one. I have 80% of the grid but my extra letters spell gobbledygook so I surmise that my solution is awry somewhere. I'll worry away at it for another day or so and see if something gives.

If anyone can nudge on the following it might expose my errors.

I can guess at a religious institution (set up in Lancashire town) but I'm struggling to find a Lancashire town that explains it).

I can not for the life of me make sense of the Last Burmese title.... clue. Is the definition first word? First 3 words? Last word? I'm totally flummoxed. I think others have found those two awkward.

Cheers, all.

First word Whistler

... and if you Google "Lancashire towns" it's on the list

kindred2 - don't get despondent and it IS worth persevering. I know, from earlier posts, that people used 26a and 26d as a start for filling the grid. They were my second in. I actually started with 1a and 1d. There aren't too many candidates that would fit. Good luck.

A game of several halves. I got a good deal of the clues solved and the NW quadrant filled very satisfactorily. Then it all seemed to go to custard. Had to leave it for a couple of days and when I came back to it the jigsaw began to work smoothly again, except where it didn’t. Then came the pdm with the message from the extra letters and then the pdm within the pdm. Thank you, Kruger.

Thank you, Kindred2 and Simond9x!

I just noticed some debate earlier in the thread over the total of the Scrabble values. For what little it’s worth, I thought the endgame was absolutely without ambiguity. What is sought in the message is very specific and the Scrabble value total of 28 confirms it. With the extra item under the grid, the title of the puzzle is satisfied and this would not be true if 29 was the total.

jack, i can certainly see the logic of the desired answer, but it is certainly not unambiguous. It would hinge on whether the relevant one had a thematic thing or not: is it A X. B or A X B? That is, is X the thematic thing, or does it mark the absence of a thematic thing? And since the relevant place has one unchecked square, you could go either way with that. Now, a careful reading would suggest that the X marks the absence of the thing, but the scrabble score nails that interpretation down. I can see why they felt it needed including, and I’m glad they did.

btw, delightful puzzle this one. Definitely a tough/daunting start: a jigsaw with six unclued entries and a hint phrase that can only start to make sense after grid filling is already well under way was a shade unkind, I thought, and as one of those who struggles when a lot of cold-solving is needed I certainly had my work cut out here! However, nice tight cluing helped, and I started to tentatively grid fill with about half the answers solved. 26a/d and 1a/d were useful ins, and several crossing clues slotted reasonably readily, and the phrase started to make sense even with just a handful of letters in place. 6d was my first penny drop, and when I realised what “according to their entry numbers” meant I both laughed and was in awe. Very neat, and I’m glad I persevered. Many thanks to everyone who added parsing hints here which just helped nudge me forward slightly faster than might otherwise have been the case! And thanks Kruger.