Posted October 30, 20231 yr Welcome to this week's chart quiz, which takes the form of a cryptic crossword, something which I don't believe has been done as a format for a Buzzjack quiz before. It's also the first time I've created one so I have no idea if I've made it too easy or too hard, but I've tried not to make the clues overly difficult - after all, this is Buzzjack, not The Times! The answers are all the titles of UK Top 10 hits from 2022 or 2023. I'm aware that cryptic crosswords aren't a well known thing outside of the UK so apologies if you've never seen one before, but here is a link which explains what they are and also provides some examples: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com...d/cryptics.html Sticking with UK top 10 hits, here are a further couple of examples: Clue: "Cut all communication with the spirit (5)" Answer: 'Ghost'. This works because 'spirit' is another word for 'ghost' and also 'cut all communication with' means 'to ghost someone'. Clue: "I is spot on with my locations (9)" Answer: 'Positions'. This works because 'locations' is another word for 'positions' and 'I is spot on' is an anagram of 'positions'. The number in brackets is the number of letters in the answer. Hope that gives you an idea if you're not familiar with cryptic crosswords! OK, here's the crossword to fill in: And here are the clues. ACROSS 1 Outstanding initial lesson (5, 5) 4 Party wildly, or decorate the streets with lively colours? (5, 3, 4, 3) 6 Pretend again to trace (5) 9 (and 23 Across) Ouch, Tom - that's an excessive amount! (3, 4) 10 Hot girl or sack young child? (8) 12 Food server loses an eye in the liquid (5) 13 River with missing letter becomes number (5) 16 Race of individuals (6) 17 Proceed to turn (2) 18 Philanderers who take part (7) 20 Spain in dreadful longing (6) 21 Sneaking without end, but enter quietly (7) 22 Reclaim the work of God (7) 23 See 9 Across 24 Car made from rare fir (7) 25 Affectionate address for tiny one (4) 26 (and 34 Across) Affectionate feeling with a saintly vibe produces a scoreless benefit (4, 4) 31 Dawn illumination makes Darren less heavy (8) 33 (and 33 Down) Repetitive heartbeat sound made by ancient Greek queen in the evening? (5, 5) 34 See 26 Across 35 Compass has missing part, rendering it futile (9) 37 Significant other or youthful companion? (9) 38 Endure the final twice (4, 4) 39 Car that initially boasts more wheels (1, 1, 1) 40 Limits of structural boards (8) 41 Having excessive desire for only the applicable parts of 'Basket Case' band (6) DOWN 1 Digits navigated with hopeful gesture (7, 7) 2 Item found in office, which takes a second to begin but runs and runs (8) 3 A pit sank in this part of the world (8) 5 Raw conflict (3) 6 Discipline concerning projectiles is very hard to understand (6, 7) 7 Skin art is also junk (6) 8 Indian currency is very odd for people you don't know (9) 11 Direction in division responsible for solving crimes leads to a Greek matchmaker (5) 14 Temptress from the Emerald Isle becomes an evil creature at night (7) 15 Tea cell is of the sky (9) 17 Exact revenge on the man or retrieve Finnish band? (3, 3, 4) 19 Heavenly illumination makes celebrity easy to lift (9) 20 Movie with a difficult demise (3, 4) 22 The gangsta who belongs to me is back in the gym (2, 1) 23 Declaration of yearning or young lady with unusual surname? (4, 3) 27 Perform a German yes for feline star (4) 28 Children's game involving pursuit of animal skin? (4, 3, 4) 29 Movie with murderous intentions towards Bailey (4, 4) 30 Cuban dance with triple the tea (3, 3, 3) 32 The way computing used to be when making an ass wait (2, 2, 3) 33 See 33 Across 36 Making inquiries in the role of His Majesty (6) If you'd like an Excel version of the crossword for ease of filling in, I've uploaded one to my Google Drive, you should be able to download it HERE. If not, let me know and I'll try and find another way of getting it to you. There are 45 top 10 hits to guess in total, each correct top 10 hit will score you 2 points, so there are 90 points up for grabs here. However, in case multiple players solve all the clues (which I am fully anticipating) I've decided to add a couple of tie-breaker questions: 1. What percentage of participants will solve all the clues? (nearest answer wins) 2. Which top 10 hit will be the least correctly solved? Each of these is worth 5 points, making the total points available 100. I've also decided on the following rule. If you're stuck on a particular clue and you think it will help you with some of the others, you can PM me and ask me to give you the answer for that particular clue. However, this will cost you a 4 point deduction! You can do this as many times as you wish though you will lose 4 points from your final total for every answer I give you. I will try and check my PMs regularly. If you've asked for an answer but managed to solve it then please PM me immediately to cancel your request before I send you the answer and you lose 4 points. Once I've responded to your request, you lose 4 points immediately. The deadline for entering this is 23:59 on Sunday 5th Nov, with the answers to follow on either the Monday or Tuesday evening. To enter, PM me with your answers, and you can use the below template. Don't forget to provide me the answers to the two tie-breaker questions too. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. Good luck! ACROSS 1 4 6 9 10 12 13 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 31 33 34 35 37 38 39 40 41 DOWN 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 11 14 15 17 19 20 22 23 27 28 29 30 32 33 36 Participants (21): chrissmith276 PedroNL25 Dobbo rio309 Bjork Y'all Starlight LewisGT Riser Ansel ~1^∞ Jade paulgilb DalekTurret32 Cow P JulianT dandy* jimwatts PeteFromLeeds Sarah Rush !!! Edited November 8, 20231 yr by Mangø
October 30, 20231 yr Goodness me this looks complicated but I'm up for a challenge! For all the work you must have put into this it deserves a strong turnout.
October 30, 20231 yr Author Once you solve a few, hopefully they will start becoming easier. It's definitely not as difficult as the ones in the papers!
October 30, 20231 yr Love a good cryptic crossword! Interested to see how I do on a song-themed one though.
October 30, 20231 yr Interesting! Are we allowed to look at the lists of 2022-2023 top 10 hits, which I imagine would narrow it down a lot (eg if a clue has 9 letters, how many 9-letter options could there be?), or are we meant to try to get them from memory?
October 30, 20231 yr Ooh love this! I got really into cryptic crosswords over the summer so very much looking forward to trying this out ^_^
October 30, 20231 yr I've literally never managed to get a single answer in a cryptic crossword ever (not that I've attempted one for a very long time / put much time into attempting one).
October 30, 20231 yr Author Interesting! Are we allowed to look at the lists of 2022-2023 top 10 hits, which I imagine would narrow it down a lot (eg if a clue has 9 letters, how many 9-letter options could there be?), or are we meant to try to get them from memory? From memory please, although I have no way of policing that!
October 30, 20231 yr Author I've literally never managed to get a single answer in a cryptic crossword ever (not that I've attempted one for a very long time / put much time into attempting one). Well here's your chance to rectify that!
October 30, 20231 yr From memory please, although I have no way of policing that!Alright, thanks ^_^ Definitely much more of a challenge that way!
October 30, 20231 yr Author Is 10 across missing? I think 11 across should be 10 Yeah that was a typo, now corrected in the OP.
November 1, 20231 yr Author Just wondering how everyone's getting on with this. Are people at least getting some of them? Got two entries so far.
November 1, 20231 yr Only looked at a few of them so far and got a couple straight away, but will put some time into this over the next few days. Looks fantastic anyway, thanks for putting this together!
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