Listener 4003

[cruciverbali]

Today's puzzle is 10 by 8

[Cruncher]

Jamesah - in 1ac the 'x' is a misprint so the second word is part of the definition. Good luck! I've only just figured out how to chop the grid up - simple when you use a little bit of logic - so still puzzling with the denouement

[Scorpius]

Midazolam, if the title and setter could be read from the filled grid, what would be the point of the partitioning task? Listener puzzles do not have arbitrary complications just to make them harder. Having spent some time working out a partition that fulfils the requrements, I'd be pretty annoyed if it didn't serve a thematic purpose.

Cruncher, I agree that one needs to follow a logical method in the process of partitioning, but I wouldn't say it's simple. The first 10 or 12 decisions are straightforward, thereafter there are various choices, some of which lead to an impasse eventually in the form of isolated islands.

[jamesah]

Thanks to those who helped; I've managed to fill the grid although I don't understand all the answers. However, now for the tricky bit!!

[Ferrabosco]

Midazolam - thanks for the steer on the contiguous partitioning.

By the way, I also think that the partitioning ought to provide the final piece. It seems to me that the point of the partitioning was to select the two groups of 18 numbers from the many combinatorial possibilities.

Given this and the word 'turn' in the rubric perhaps the idea is to take one of the two sets and from it form two words of length 10 (title) and 8 (setter).

Any thoughts?

[midazolam]

not sure i totally agree scorpius, given that there are some zigzag paths, a name might come clear once cut out which might not have been obvious in the whole grid. by the look of it this is not the case and one must do something else to get that name
(although i see what you mean if you put it in context with my example earlier)

that light bulb has not switched on yet....

[Cruncher]

Whilst it is tempting to imagine that the title and setter amount to 18 letters, as suggested by the partitioning numbers, the space allocated for the title is a tad small to squeeze ten letters into. I wonder if anyone else has noticed that if one rotates one piece so as to cover the other and then flips the top piece over, that it blocks out all but a rather smaller group of letters in which 10 and 8 feature prominently depending on which way round you do it. That said I can't yet translate either of those letter groups into either a title or a setter. Hmmm

[midazolam]

cant see where the 8 is cruncher

i almost thought i had it then - if you overlap the 2 cut outs and see which letters are the same in each grid then the first 4 letters (depending on which way up you turn it) spell out NAME!!! but then the rest does not surmount to much

[spiderFreak]

This business about finding the shapes is really doing my head in. Does no-one know any handy theorems from graph theory or something?
I'm not going down a blind alley in assuming that the shapes give 180 degree symmetry in the grid, am I?

[Cruncher]

Hi SpiderFreak. You can assume 180 rotational symmetry and you can make a simple assumption about the perimeters - ie if one shape was traverse from one perimeter side to its opposite side then the other shape would have to do likewise which means that they would cross over in the middle which is clearly impossible. Beyond that I found it easier to use two different coloured pencils and shade in the squares rather than draw the outline of the partitioning. If you can establish the colouring for the perimeter squares that will in turn give you a lot of information about a number of internal squares. From there on it is simple logic to establish the other squares so as to ensure that no group of coloured squares becomes separated from its friends.

Midazolam - my line of enquiry involves rotating one piece so as to cover the other then flipping the top piece about its vertical axis (ie so that the blank side is uppermost) and placing it back over the piece underneath. Only 7 squares of the underneath piece will now be visible. Depending on which piece is the lower piece the uppermost and leftmost visible square will be either a cell with a 10 in it or an 8. Sadly the exposed letters don't lead to an obvious solution in either case.....

[Cruncher]

Aaah - cracked it! Midazolam, you were closer than you realised....

[spiderFreak]

Thanks Cruncher, the shape magically appeared just after me venting my frustration on the last post, and then the final bit came to me during a bout of insomnia in the middle of the night.

[midazolam]

doh!

[MadSolver]

Thanks guys.

I didn't have a clue, but now Ive cracked this beastie. This might well keep me on course for an allcorrect year in what seems to have been a much harder year than last year - anybody want to comment?

Anyway I agree with the idea that the stats don't prove anything - I know how often Ive had to look on here to make progress, and what business is it of anybody elses?

[Listenerite]

I'd like to comment.

I spent over 10 hours last weekend working out how to 'crack this beastie', and was proud of myself when I finally saw the light. I had a sense of achievement, knew that I had stuck with it when many others wouldn't, and was pleased to have maintained a record where I've submitted every puzzle for the last four years.

However, yet again that achievement will not be recognised or seen to be anything special, simply because this thread, even if it does not actually give away the answer, will provide enough information that anybody who simply Googles 'Listener 4003' will within a few seconds receive substantial help simply by reading this thread. Having spent ten hours going down numerous blind alleys when trying to crack the denouement, I now have to ask myself what the point was.

Each week, I could simply not even look at a puzzle until the weekend after it's been published, look on here, then sneak my entry in just before the deadline. As I've said before, when it comes to the Listener, Answerbank is the last resort of the stupid, the lazy and the selfish. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

If you make it to the Dinner next March as an all-correct, MadSolver, then I hope you will let us all know your real name in advance. If it's so acceptable to use Answerbank to cheat at solving the Listener, surely there's no harm in somehow letting us Listenerites know who you are? You can post an anonymous message on the Crossword Centre message board, or I can let you have my e-mail addres so that you can get in touch. It'll be good to meet you.

[Cruncher]

Listenerite - the sense of achievement you have at reaching a solution for this puzzle after hours of investigation, blind alleys and inspiration is very real. Well done. This thread and this site does not detract from that and if you do indeed maintain an all-correct record that you rightly deserve the admiration of your family, friends, colleagues, fellow solvers and anyone else whose admiration you seek and feel you need. And I don't see how it tempers your achievement whether there are 10 correct solvers at the end of the year or 50 to be honest. It is still a tiny fraction of the population and of the Listener-solving community.

There are three observations beyond that that I'd like to make. The first is though there is a fair bit of information on this thread it would only be useful if you had already completed the grid - ie you need to be 95% of the way to a solution under your own steam.

Secondly I think that the number of potential solvers who are fixated on statistics and dinners is a minority and the majority of solvers just enjoy the fun and challengs these crosswords provide. And whilst one could get stuck and wait three weeks and then read the solution that inevitably is less fun than being given a nudge in the right direction and thereby enabled to keep chasing the solution.

And finally doing crosswords, for all their positives, can be a rather anti-social and lonesome pursuit, as the image of you holed up for ten hours brings to mind. That there are some solvers who not only seek out but probably enjoy the banter and camaraderie of a site like this seems quite reasonable and understandable.

Like so many other things on the Internet - if it offends you, you really don't have to look at it.

I'll be sorry to miss you at the dinner. As I said higher up the thread, two hours in the pub was quite enough Listener socialising for me

[midazolam]

here here cruncher

will you 2 stay off this site - we dont want your comments here. I have never been to this dinner - and wouldnt want to if I have to be stuck on your table for the evening - i would be asleep by the main course. you must have nothing better to do if you keep checking here just in case someone has said something against your taste. (it is up to people like madsolver if they want the feeling of all-correct status by using hints on here - personally i have a life)

that pub sounds nice cruncher...

[cruciverbali]

Thanks for all those on-topic comments, folks - it's great to see this puzzle's popularity is as strong as ever here. Can I also take this opportunity to congratulate you midazolam on your change of legal status !

C

[angrysolver]

Just out of interest, Midazolam, how the hell can you manage to solve the Listener if you don't understand the rules of capitalisation or punctuation in English, or know the difference between "here" and "hear"? I'd guess it's with a lot of help from others...

[midazolam]

so why has your pseudonym not have a capital angrysolver?

get back to your boring petty existence