Listener 4206 - A1 by Ifor

[Cruncher]

Prize for the most abstruse preamble this year?

[IainGrace]

Starwalker, it's what they are and what they are doing relative to their clues.

[IainGrace]

Our solution works, provided that down answers also contribute. The rubric doesn't say that they don't. Is our analysis correct?

[bobbycollins]

As with Ifor's EV - full grid & bemused. At 60 I think that my faculties are waning. Ho-hum.

[fortyseven]

All done, without too many alarms and with several spaced-out penny dropping moments along the way. Identifying which were the four wordplay-only answers was tricky; one of the chosen four could have been an "& lit". But the whole puzzle seems to be at about the right level of difficulty. Thanks to Ifor.

[Alekhine]

Yes, a pleasant enough meander.

Almost made a schoolboy error at the end, but that nagging doubt about the wordplay in one clue caused me to look again ... and with significant consequence.

Phew!

[Alekhine]

IainGrace,

My solution didn't require contribution from the down answers, but I may have missed something, I suppose.

[perseverer]

Alekhine - are you sure about that?

A relatively straightforward puzzle once you realise what the removed letters are leading to, but a cleverly put together grid with a number of thematic features.

[Cruncher]

Not as opaque as the preamble seemed at first reading - although still in search of a "connection". Happy perusing and pondering

[pushmi-pullyu]

Message to self: when stuck, go for a drive. The PDM happened halfway back from shopping. Not for the first time.

[jim360]

Well, finished with a consistent solution (thanks to those who dropped useful hints via email) but the preamble seems to be very misleading at times. Also not fully sorted through all those editions to across clues but it seems that you don't really need to. I hope - since there was at least one point in my highlighting where two different routes were possible but one would use an extra cross clue that seems not to need any changes.

Anyway, not my favourite listener ever. Not much seems added by the cryptic start and finish, and the connection seems unsatisfactory.

[tilbee]

Didn't get around to this until this afternoon, but an enjoyable enough workout. Contributions from the down clues definitely required for the connection, at least in my solution.

[emcee]

I agree with Alekhine; my solution didn't need contributions from down entries either.

[Alekhine]

Not sure if we are talking at cross purposes regarding the contribution, or lack of contribution from down answers.

I mean that no down answers contributed letters from their clues to "spell items behaving thematically".

I sense now that IainGrace is referring to down answers contributing to the "cryptic representations" and "connection" ... in which case, I agree.


Apologies for the confusion.

[fyellin]

I'm in the same situation as Starwalker. Completed grid. I have the start, finish, and connection. But no idea what it means that the letters removed "spell items behaving thematically." So no idea if that means I'm done, or some gotcha awaiting me.

[IainGrace]

Alekhine, correct. Fyellin, see our other earlier post in case that helps.

[emcee]

Apologies for my last load of rubbish. It would help if I had the completed grid in front of me before commenting; there ARE down entries which contribute.

Sorry all.

[tenflags]

For some reason I had a bit of a hump with this one but on reflection its all pretty fair and clever

[Cruncher]

Just had to award a best answer. Somewhat random choice tenflags - hope you don't mind - but just had to have the thrill of being able to do so. Might choose someone else tomorrow morning. Oh the power...

[Coalminers]

Yes, sorry Jim...reference your very first comment on this thread, there is no justice is there? That's 3 I've got so far....and they make wonderful presents for stingy relatives who don't really deserve any money spending on them. Even better than the chickens I bought them last year for a needy family in Africa. I loved the look on their faces when they realised they didn't actually get anything, except that glowing feeling of satisfaction for making the lives of less fortunate people more bearable.
I digress. Good fun crossword, Ifor. Thank you. And, in a departure from the norm, I went down to the local on the Friday evening to ask some aficionados for the missing detail. More like cheating perhaps than using the internet, but a lot more sociable and enjoyable.

[olichant]

Well, I've rapidly moved from being Incredibly Smug at a personal best time for grid-fill (admittedly being a bit casual about confirming some of the wordplay), to feeling Impossibly Thick for not having a clue what to highlight or where to go from here. I feel drawn towards an (obvious) theme, but who can say whether or not it is a red herring. And to think I was on the cusp of Friday Club stardom. Hey ho.