CrissCross - Easy? or Tough? or 50-50?

Last time we banged our heads for conducting a Crossie event was way back in 2002 in our College, for our EEE (Electrical & Electronics) Dept Symposium "Sparks 2002"(Edo bharatha..if u r reading this post kindly reply back! what was the name which you kept for our symposium? i vaguely remember it as "Sparks" or was it "Vidyut"??:-))

That time we three (me, Shiv, and my bro Sathish) had to complete both the prelims and finals crossie hastily in just 4 days working in the weekends...Sathish was the VB designer for the Finals crossie and Shiv and I were framing those cryptic clues for the Grid...The theme of the Crossie was anything under the sky related to Electrical and Electronics ;-)...

We thought of making the clues too cryptic so that no one can answer and there by setting our standards:-D...But little did we know that REC Trichy was gonna crack it mercilessly on the next day...Literally REC murdered each and every question thrown at them and even the passed ones from other teams and won single handedly leaving us with a dissatisfied feeling that we could have done better than this :-(...After that, we never had a chance to conduct a crossie event although we were participating in lot of them conducted by other colleges...The best crossie that I ever saw was the crossie conducted by CECRI folks...Awesome one!!! But I would say the best cryptic crossie setter is "Vaibhav"from SVCE...Amazing chap!!!his clues are so cryptic that you enjoy cracking them...

Recently I got a chance to conduct a crossie event in our corporate Business unit (RETAIL) culturals...I would say the decision to conduct the event came involuntarily upon me when Nara came and told me that there isn't anything that is interesting in Retail Mela this time...I was taken aback seeing the events list as there was no event with Yaggy's name as the coordinator...Then I realized that Yaggy was at onsite...For a minute, I thought, had Yaggy been here (at offshore) we wouldn't have been put in such dire straits searching for event anchors as there would be a plethora of events that he would voluntarily conduct and we as participants just need to send in our entries to him...Yaggy miss ur quiz man for this Retail Mela...u rock :-D

Then I made up my mind to conduct the crossie event and thought that I would continue from where I left back in 2002...And that's how CRISSCROSS was christened...

Although I had prior experience of conducting a crossie event in my college you feel the nervousness in every event you conduct especially when the D-day is close enough...To add on to the agony, it was only me setting up the clues this time with no Shiv...I had decided to conduct prelims and finals with a carry over of points from prelims to finals (to avoid ppl taking prelims lightly)...I downloaded the trial version of http://www.crossword-compiler.com/ and started making grids for the finals...

As usual, Sathish was the VB designer for the Finals Grids, only problem was that he was now in UK and we had to exchange some mails and our conversation in calls to get the things straightened out...Sathish u r gr8, always helpful and supportive ;-)...

Like they say "All's Well ends Well"...CRISSCROSS prelims and finals was well received by the participants as well as the audience...

I am posting the CRISSCROSS clues below in this post...Do let me know what you feel of the prelims...Easy? or Tough? or 50-50? And ya, forgot to tell you, this time, I have just created a simple crossie as I don't want to get into the illusion of setting up high standards and get whacked for the second time :-D...

Watch out for the Crisscross finals in the coming posts which is a video taken from my handycam and I am in the process of editing it...Will upload when it is ready and also the answers for the prelims...Hence stay glued to this web page...:-)
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CRISSCROSS Prelims Clues : Retail Brands and Terms
"Answer lies just in front of you"
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CLUELESS CLUES???

Left Vertical Chain:

* 1) Company set in WWI is the largest Supermarket chain in UK
* 2) Minimum Cost Company with Maximum Shopping Experience (Workable)
3) John Pemberton cooked this liquid long back
* 4) Staple Food of Thinking MBA students of US
5) “Gods Gift” in Latin is a pleasure for chocolate Lovers

2nd Horizontal Inverted L Chain:

6) Common market form of Greece with few sellers
7) Do you know why Antra Mali checks and suggests Retail Solutions? (Easily workable)
8) Imagine! If Ralf Schumacher drives for McLaren then who would design his outfits?
* 9) Phil Knight prays the Goddess for Victory in sports but God Replies back to Just Do It in
sports than to Pray him
*10) Decker goes wild in Drugstore!
*11) Maharaja Digvijay Singh of Jamnagar is believed to have started this suitings brand
*12) What’s common to A South American River, A Greek female Warrior, A genre of parrot
(Amazing Funda! :-))
13) Senitel Disdains ego for serving food beverages

1st Horizontal Inverted L Chain:

*14) Bald Hick never cared for Calvin’s Product
*15) Sheyer Defines the act as the Justa Position of Orbicularis muscle in the state of contraction
(Just Keep it Sweet and Simple!)
*16) Baldwin, Schissler, Bowker treat Captain Ahab with “Crabs Tusk” as refreshment in the
hunt of Moby Dick the Whale
17) Wanna Shop! Just stop here and shop (Sitter :-))
18) Substitute M for Music in Superman’s birth place
19) Only Chennaities, Mumbaikers, Delhiites and Kolkatans shop here (No more clues) :-)
*20) X’s Role is to keep up the time in Centre Court, Wimbeldon.
21) Excellent Oxide needed for higher power of batteries
22) Shipment moves from Chennai to Pondicherry. In short the Expected Time of Arrival is?
(Sitter of all :-))
23) India needs 26 runs in 1 ball (Enuf clues!:-))

ALL THE BEST :-)

Bonus Clue:

Shawn's parents never say no to music! :-D
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- Suresh Gangadharan