Inquisitor 1679 Heavy Metal Band by Harribobs

Doesn’t it look pretty? Today’s ersatz grid thing that is. All those lovely coloured bits waiting to be filled, and something revealed.

Doesn’t it also look rather empty? Oh yes, it does, because I have had a rare (if the second this quarter) total wipeout. One this time too where I have failed miserably to jot in a single entry.

Nimrod assured us that once we get a few entries in this would all get easier. Except I haven’t managed to get a single entry in. Cycling, you see, and clashes. So while I have NIFFIER, FRENULA and ERROR for my first three answers, there are too many common letters to even begin to guess at how we should correctly cycle and enter them into the grid. If you look carefully you can see where I thought I had one, realised the error of my ways, and swiftly erased that one measly entry.

No fear, I thought, all will be revealed later. The threesome of TRITIUM, GRETA and REIGN looking a little more helpful. Except that the latter two have little asterisks beside them to indicate that we’re to expect clashes.

The upshot being that while I’ve cold solved about half the clues, I can see no possible way of entering the things. And without something in the way of checking letters, whatever that’s worth in that helix thing, I’ve got little chance of cold solving them all.

So nul points.

Wipeout.

I will be intrigued to see the success rate for this one, how many persevered. Or if Boxing Day and the subsequent sitting-round-the-house-eating-mince-pies of the following locked down week were simply not conducive, here at least, to the kind of concentration levels required.

Oh well, there’s always next week.