Listener Crossword 4093 Times Group by Colleague

[starwalker]

Another Friday, another Listener and another new setter (or is it).
After a very straightforward grid fill, I shall now retire for a glass of something to consider the preamble.
These easy fills are starting to worry me - what is coming round the corner ?

[dr b]

Or the 3rd group anyway, but the 2nd group certainly helps to get the 3rd.

[AndrewG-S]

Thanks for the link Mysterons, that was a good puzzle, although not my favourite theme

[tramart]

I perceive JEG to be a fair-minded man, although the method of selecting prize-winners, as described with the stats a few years ago, is/was not as random as it might be.
The one year I had an all-correct (before I had Web access, and I now rarely submit), another all-correct was submitted by a couple. Now "two heads ...". So why is that acceptable? I don't see that as inherently different from people sharing ideas on the Answerbank. How many people jointly submitting would be acceptable? Three, four, ... a team?
Crosswords are just an amusement, and if anyone takes them too seriously, that's their problem.

[Clamzy]

Couldn't agree more tramart. In my group in last year's statistics was a "Dr Morris and others" - it didn't say how many others.
As for the randomness of the prize draw(s), there seem to be too many multiple winners each year than would be expected by chance. No sour grapes here just because I have never won in umpteen years:-)

[twoshortplan]

I have won twice in one year and I only manage to complete about 50% of the puzzles. I won once a long time ago when the crossword was still in the Listener magazine. Problem with winning twice was that first time prize was Chambers crossword dictionary - not bad; second time prize was a book of Inspector Morse crosswords. Hope they liked it at the charity shop.

[twoshortplan]

Thought I would work backwards from the writer. After all there can't be that many people with names of 2,7 can there?. How about Bo Diddley, Dr Faustus and Mo Ibrahim? Not getting very far. Best check out Cy Twombly and Ed Stewart.

Then Wow. Finished in a rush of PDMs. Satisfying conclusion to the puzzle.

[silversolver]

Enjoyed this one - completed the grid pretty quickly but then, like others (judging by the comments above), took a while to spot the first, second and third groups. I have won one prize having done the Listener for about 6 months - judging by the average number of correct entries I would guess that I would not expect another one for a couple of years at least.

Thanks AHearer and others for the pointer to Schadenfreude's puzzle in the latest CAM magazine - I have not spotted the crossword in there before and will enjoy pitting my wits against that one.

[qwerty99]

I enjoyed this too; guessed the larger of the first two groups before finishing the grid, so it was pretty much a shoo-in from then. Fun though, but as has been mentioned earlier, another easy one, and there must be something horrid in store.

Now, on winning.... I've been submitting the Listener for 6 or 7 years, along with EV, the Independent (Inquisitor) and occasionally the Azed. Have won 4 bottles of champagne (Indie; never fancied the olive oil), 3 Telegraph pens (with hand-crafted gold nib, and very nice pens they are too) and a book token from Azed for a puzzle which I didn't remember submitting. But never a sniff of winning the Listener! I am a duffer at sums (which is why I don't like the Listener number puzzles) but to me the odds do look a bit skewed. Now you can all take turns in explaining probability to a simpleton!

[tristram37]

I have to confess to being totally at sea on this one. I completed the grid pretty quickly but have stared at the list of answers on and off for most of the day, having no idea what I am looking for or how many of each group there might be. If anyone would like to help me with a gentle nudge at [email protected] it would be much appreciated.

[naomirod]

as someone only bright enough to finish about 20 listeners per year, imagine my disappointment to finish this one then not have the foggiest idea about how to pin down this group malarky.would anyone give me a pointer?

[Mysterons]

Think of a connection between King Kong and Citizen Kane.

[silversolver]

tristram37 and naomirod - I (and many others by the sound of it) also spent a good deal of time scratching my head over this one. However, if you look carefully at the answers in the completed grid at least one of the "groups" should become obvious and from there the rest does fall into place (eventually)

[BlackHugh]

One thing I liked about this one was that it was entirely contained in Chambers. No other reference was needed.

I have ony been doing the Listener for about 18 months so I'm not surprised to not have won - however I do find it ironic that the top prize is a copy of Chambers - without which one could probably never have completed it in the first place.

[tristram37]

The problem is, Silversolver, that I have already spent several hours "looking carefully" at the answers and nothing is obvious, and Mysteron's little hint is tantalising but ultimately doesn't advance the situation. As I said previously, if anyone cares to be just that little more specific but doesn't want to spoil the enjoyment of others (particularly in view of the subplot in this thread about disclosure) an email would be an admirable way round.

[dr b]

^^BlackHugh, that's exactly what I didn't like about this one. If you have a copy of Chambers, it just becomes a scavenger hunt through the numbers. Lacking a copy of Chambers I found it way too obscure.

On a tangentially related note (speaking of reference materials), a few weeks ago we were wondering why writing "Derelict" under the "yo-ho-ho" puzzle was optional. I was reading the setter's blog on Listen With Others, and he noted that a copy of the poem "Derelict" did not appear in any standard reference that the editors could find; it was available only on the Internet. As it is the Listener's policy that a puzzle should be workable without access to the Internet, the editors decided to make that word optional.

[daagg]

dr b, I don't think you'll find this one via the numbers in Chambers - certainly not the third group, as that was one of my first attempts.

[tristram37]

With a bit of help to get me started I have now seen the light. My own preference is for puzzles where the main objective is to solve the clues. I find this increasing emphasis on easy clues, followed by a (sometimes very obscure) intelligence test requiring the sort of quantum leaps we were used to at 11+ stage, rather disquieting.

[bobbycollins]

Please add me to the list of head scratchers. The first group is obvious (when you have 'phoned IntotheBlue to ask what it is). The second group would never have occurred to me, never having heard of it. Having said that, the theme isn't terribly obscure, so I'm not complaining. I do feel that there was an imbalance between the grid fill and end-game.