Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

I’m in the “full grid, clear instruction, five words, three of which make possible sense as a guide to six of the eight replacements and two which can be anagrammed to two four letter words that might help complete the endgame - and no real clue how to proceed” camp. Perhaps the penny will drop; I suspect not, though. Matters domestic are too important at the moment: we have been introduced to SCAD after my daughter had a completely unexpected heart attack from which she is thankfully, albeit slowly, recovering.

I am in the same position as you Jack. Absolutely no idea how to select the items required by the instruction: there are so many possibilities, but only one regular shape would work, so I am guessing that it may be that.

If you have the grouping of three extra words, if they are in clue order a, b, c, I suggest you order them a, c, b and insert the words “letters in the” to make a clear instruction. Bear in mind that the new words formed in that column are unimportant. What matters is what crosses them

I should have said “insert the words after a”. And Jack, very sorry to hear of your family tribulations, and keeping everything crossed for a favourable outcome.

Thanks Dodgepot.

Thanks, Dodgepot. Your sentiments much appreciated.

Likewise Jack, hope all is progressing well.

You hopefully have the first 6 changes - think the obvious 3 words out of the five give a pretty clear signpost to them.

The other two are a bit GWIT. I went through the grid and circled every other letter that could change. Two changes 'felt' more likely than the others to me, and it turned out one of those was right. That then led to the other one. The last bit is trivial once you have the thirty cells figured. The other thing that helped was guessing we wouldn't be changing cells for no reason.

It is quite neat once you see it.

Sorry raggedy, and anyone else who tried my link at @18: the final full stop is not part of the link but this forum tool appears to have made it so. QXW is excellent and can be used to do much the same (and much more), but needs to be installed.

The 30d issue is interesting. The fact that something "in G" has one sharp (if we presume major is intended) is not attested in BRB, but then not everything needed for the clues is -- we are expected to find out for ourselves what cities there are in Cambridgeshire (for 10d), or what country Riga is in (for 36a), etc, so I guess the question really is what degree of non-BRB general knowledge is acceptable to require as part of solving a clue. Geographic and political knowledge appears to be normal, musical theory not so much.

There was some delightful clueing in this one, though one or two were a bit of a stretch for me. I'm still laughing at 36a. I was not a fan of the GWIT-fest ending, ingenious though it is and entirely clear once spotted. For anyone still struggling, dodgepot@53 is worth reading very carefully indeed. I'm afraid I can also never really like any puzzle that requires me to rub out most of my hard work. We haven't had one of these for a while. For me, every letter entered is painful, so every letter rubbed out is equally so...!