Listener 4285: Now You See It By Mr E

[AHearer]

A nice playful offering by Mr E. Nothing too difficult in the clues, but I found spotting the way the other four fitted took far longer than it should have. Luckily I spotted the final one fairly quickly. Thanks, Mr E, that was fun.

[tristram37]

Contrarian is right in a sense, but if the setter did not notice the alternative he would have no reason to refer to the word being in Chambers. Looking at it the other way, if the alternative WAS what Mr E intended, I am sure the editors would have insisted on saying that the resulting word was not in Chambers. Since they have not done so it must be concluded that the obvious answer is the one to use. QED!

[EAChaplin]

I fully agree Tristram37 especially as the preamble did refer to an answer which was not in Chambers. To refer to that and not mention the crucial one to be highlighted would be an error beyond belief. I am somewhat disappointed at the number of these controversial points which seem to be cropping up regularly in recent Listeners.

[jim360]

Did they really pop up less in the past, or is it just easier to notice them these days when we have so many more resources more readily available to check these puzzles?

[perseverer]

..... Or if we didn't have these forums, how many of us would notice a problem?

[Scorpius]

Finally saw the light. I must confess to feeling slightly underwhelmed by the finale. It's a perfectly good puzzle, but after all that staring I was hoping for something more.

As for the alternative highlighting that some have found, I'm just as mystified by that as I was by the original endgame. Using TEA (which lists words from many other dictionaries) I've tried jumbling every normal entry in every thematic way and can find nothing other than the one presumably intended by the setter.

[sunny-dave]

All done - would have been finished mush sooner if I hadn't got a (completely parsable) wrong answer for 35ac, which made 29d insoluble for far too long.

A tad underwhelmed by the endgame, but didn't take too long - having got a Chambers word, I'm not going ferreting around for any alternatives.

Time to get on with the birthday imbibing :+)

[IainGrace]

Got there in the end and in doubt as to the correct solution.

[doctormatt]

Phew, made it after getting bogged down for a while on the last word. Fun.

[pushmi-pullyu]

Not cooking carrots but doing the ironing. Isn't it strange how often the answer just drops into your head, seemingly out of nowhere?

[youngoffender]

I could have done with a clearer signal for the final stage.