Orbocross

For you, the lucky ones that had the immesurable pleasure of reading my book, you know already my immesurable skills in creating immesurably contorted professional cross-words. Like the one around Scitex in the book. Well, while in Orbotech, still a newcomer and still trying to get my foothold around, I repeated the exercise. This time, of course, with the Orbotech logo symbolically placed in the middle of the cross-word grid, and with questions around this industry's motifs. I distributed it through the internal newsletter, with a nice prize attached to the lucky one that sends in the first correct solution. And then the days passed, then weeks, then months, then years... Belgium became a carjacking empire... still no solution. Did I overestimate the reigning intelectual interest? Or underestimate the difficulty level?

Bottom line - nobody answered, nobody got the prize, and Orbotech was richer by about one hundred bucks. A long time after, about four years was it, I found by chance the one person that tried and almost did it right - Inge. The funny thing was that when I showed her the solution - there was one item that it took me one full day to understand the answer I originally provided. So whoever tried and failed - no wonder...

For the brave ones amongst you - here it is again. A few of the cues (the "better" ones) and answers are taken from the Scitex cross-word. The other 99% are original. I also fill in on the answer grid the items that, if you're not with Orbotech, you have no chance of finding. I believe the best approach would be to print the grill and work on paper. You can try as well a permanent marker on your monitor screen, but I doubt if other users will appreciate it.

Happy Suffering!!!

 
Dear casual reader,

Wait, wait, please don't run away. Solving the hereby presented ORBOCROSS is not attached to your bonus, so nobody forces you to do it. But then, of course, you'll lose some fun and a once in a lifetime opportunity to go with your wife/husband/friend/lover/(boss?) to this intimate tête-à-tête offered to you by your company. So think twice before you do it once.

No, God forbid, you don't have to rush right away in your underwear to the nearest bookshop to buy the latest in Oxford's super dictionaries, Guiness book of records and three sets of Encyclopædia Britannica. Some general knowledge is of course more than welcome, imagination is what you really need. Energy saving pools are more than welcome. And incoherent thinking is what you need most of all.

I warn you - it is tough, yet fair. It follows and mixes most of the rules of conventional crosswords, and breaks some of them as well. Hints may be leading or misleading, not everything is seen and not everything that glitters is gold; there is some gold plated lead there. Don't say you were not warned.

Ah, yes, last statement - I take no responsibility for broken marriages. That's final and irrevocable.

So here it comes.

Yossi

Note: Following conventional two-dimensional crosswords, Horizontal coordinates start with numbers, Vertical start with letters. No traps here.