Ev 1105 Loss Of Life By Kcit

[devadolly]

Oh, My, Goodness! Just where is St Jude when needed?

[DocHH]

Hello Devadolly,
A tad on the difficult side today, to say the least! I have taken a leap of faith with regard to the size of the initial solution grid, the otherwise unused letter which is used to augment the existing entries, and found some of the redundant words, that correspond to the augmented entries. Have now started to enter words into the grid, this will hopefully asist with solving more clues. Am nowhere near deducing the unclued three word entry, although I have the first word! Now going to take a rest and resume tomorrow! A large Glenmorangie may well relax my poor brain, it certainly will not inspire it!

Do I hear you say, "come back Mr O, all is forgiven"?

[dr b]

Hardest EV ever? or since I've been working them, anyway. I have the initial grid size, method of augmenting, and 3 word phrase; working on the rest of the initial grid entries. No ideas as to the remaining 3 words yet, but I shall persevere. Hopefully will finish by the time football starts.

10 inches of snow followed by -7 F temperatures last Sunday - today, heading towards 55 degrees and the snow is nearly gone.

[EV_Solver]

A good work out from Kcit, and an excellent interpretation of the theme. Difficult, but a really, really good puzzle, and one of the best EVs that I can remember. Certainly the stand-out puzzle from this weekend's trio - EV, Listener, IQ.

Slightly baffled though, DocHH; who is Mr O?

[dr b]

Finally finished; it took a while to match the final augmented entry with its definition. Very clever and in the end all very fair.

Mr O = Oxymoron, DD's favorite setter.

[devadolly]

Am in the usual awe of you brain-boxes as have read the preamble until I'm blue in the face and it still means ....zilch! Have managed quite a few of the clues which are surprising me with their simplicity......false trail no less as I have no means of putting the answers anywhere.
Quite right DocHH Mr O has been pushed down to second place in the terror invoking author list!
Wondered how you were faring in the horrendous weather the States have been suffering drb, please don't send it over here.

[slaney]

Yes - a real tough one for the turn of the year.
Thanks to Kcit for the challenge.

[DocHH]

Well that Glemorangie yesterday slipped down a treat! It had the desired effect of relaxing my brain. Came back to EV today after polishing off the Cryptic/Quick and Herculis, and it sort of just fell into place, my leaps of faith yesterday had paid off! Methinks a celebrational, or should that be a cerebrational Glenmorangie is in order.
Devadolly, I made the assumption that for the initial solution grid to display 180° symmetry, it must be a square rather than a rectangle!

[devadolly]

It's already square DocHH!
Have managed 1A & what I think could be 1D but that is about as helpful as a pair of flip-flops in our 10 acre field at the moment.

[DocHH]

Devadolly, the grid into which you should be entering the clues you have solved is smaller than the grid published. It is also symmetrically arrayed in the published grid. The final grid is the same size as the grid published, but with some empty cells. The rubric is quite specific!

[devadolly]

Oh, stop talking about rubric's DocHH, your a scientist, we wordsmiths don't do rubrics! Am losing the will to live.