Listener No 4557

[Flocker14]

Either the thread is hiding again or I'm up here first, which I find a bit unlikely. Either I made a complete dog's dinner of this or it was quite difficult to sort out. Devotees might be on to this quicker than I was, but it took me a good few hours to unravel, partly due to a wrong letter (justified I thought) in an across discard. It all came out in the end though - and unambiguously too which was relief. Many thanks, Serpent for quite a tough workout which I thoroughly enjoyed!

[ProfessorMaisie]

I would suggest there is an ambiguity if the alteration to one of the down clues is not demanded by wordplay.

[sunny-dave]

An excellent challenge - albeit one that ended with a few Choice Words of my own when required to write the relevant name under the grid!

Thanks Serpent - good stuff

[Hagen]

Haven't we had this theme before in a quite recent puzzle? Not that I mind; I enjoyed this and thanks to spotting the pattern early on, it was a fairly gentle stroll to the finishing post. Some of Serpent's clues were suitably slithery but totally fair - there were some nice tea-tray moments during the solve.

I couldn't find a thread until this afternoon, despite Flocker having posted at 11.22 (I assume that's UK time). The Answerbank search facility seems to be even slower on the uptake than I am!

[IainGrace]

Yes, a good Listener challenge which we worked through to the light bulb moment. About two and a half hours, which is about two hours longer than last week.

[emcee]

Decent challenge and I enjoyed the variation in clue difficulty.

I would sooner leave the name section blank, sunny-dave, and hope that John Green understands!

Nice puzzle, Serpent. Thanks.

[olichant]

I loved the idea behind this and the way it was implemented. Really enjoyable clues, too. Thanks Serpent.

[Philoctetes]

I was held up looking for the acronym, until I realised a mistake I had made. Interesting "gizmo" and nice clues. My quibble was that I would have thought "parts" meant chunks as removed.

[vetuste_ennemi]

I got the person last night in the pub watching my boys win, but only just - like ten minutes ago - got the acronym.

Whose sensitivities (presumably EmCee's rather than John Green's) are served by omitting the name?