Listener 4356 Mashonaland By Raffles

[trux]

Some excellent clueing, especially where extra letters were unambiguously indicated. The end result may never win a prize for elegance, even with the speakers revealed, but the gridfill speeds up very quickly once you have enough to work with and becomes increasingly enjoyable. I know which of the speakers I prefer to listen to. Many thanks, Raffles.

[EAChaplin]

Agree completely with Ev_solver, but in my case it was Quinapalus rather than Google which saw me home. As for the title, Speravi's rule applies yet again.

[UglyUncle]

I'm with EV and EA on this one. The theme was guessable after only three of the 13 had been solved, and the method of entry became apparent at that stage as well, leading to a groan of exasperation at the slog that clearly lay ahead. The second quote fell out of the (relatively easy) across clues not long after, which made the first quote a strong probability. (Is an accent necessary or not? We're not told.)

Apart from a bit of short-lived grid-staring, that was as much fun as there was to be had. Like Jim360 I found the top right corner a bit of a chore, but I got there in the end.

Using the conventional method of resolving ambiguities left me with none to be agonised over, so the third line appeared in full without any need for a final choice. Were others held up by it?

Upsetter, I think there is a departure from thematic spelling if you consider the third word, although Google suggests that the version used is the correct one.

[perseverer]

There is potentially ambiguity which I did not realise myself till I went back over my entries, looking for it. I wonder if it was something spotted by the Editors, who then made sure we wouldn't be on here complaining about ambiguities!
As to the accent, I doubt it matters, but going with Chambers seems like a good idea.
And this might not have been one of my favourites for the year but I thought it was better than several we have had.

[upsetter]

Thanks UglyUncle - that is what we were thinking but it seemed a bit weak and would have been better if the clause had been omitted.
We had also double checked the third row without fining any errors although we had originally made the assumptions that the unches would contain the duplicated letters.

[Philoctetes]

I agree with most of the negative points raised here: the two long answers were mightily obscure; the "theme" and treatment was too quickly obvious; finding the thirteen and entering them turned into a dull slog. Perfectly tones with the cold grey drizzle outside. Cleverly constructed, as usual.

[icynorth]

This was tough! It took a long time to complete even after I'd quickly spotted the second quotation and had a fair guess as to what was going on.

A very clever construction, though - thanks Raffles!

[olichant]

Interesting balance of comments here. I sympathise with some of the negative ones, but oddly (masochistically?) I quite enjoyed the challenge posed by the 13 thematic entries, despite the fact that I normally loathe that sort of thing. And I did stumble into a potential ambiguity - and I liked the way it was resolved by the preamble. Chacun a son gout, but I found it fun.

[jim360]

I guess it's possible that, having correctly interpreted the relevant sentence about the final ambiguity from the outset, I shaped the grid around it and never saw the relevant ambiguity. I can't track it back though, looking at the grid. Never mind.

[perseverer]

The ambiguity relates to the assumption mentioned above which is not necessarily valid in relation to two intersecting entries.

[Ruthrobin]

Ah, thank you, Perseverer, I have been wondering about it as I resolved it as Jim360 says and never thought of what you explain.

[starwalker]

I came to this puzzle fairly late and was surprised by the variety of comments about it, here. Having now battled through to the end, I afraid, Raffles, that I'm in the negative camp on this one. I just saw it all as a slog once the theme had been sussed fairly early on. What amazes me most is the time it took for trux to solve it.

[Scorpius]

As olichant says, chacun a son gout (apologies to linguists for lack of accents), but it wasn't vraiment a mon gout. I trawled Chambers quotes to get the first quote (not too hard given the four-word stipulation) and guessed the second quote once I had identified some key extra letters. That left me with about two-thirds of the grid to fill - mainly fiddly slog, copious use of TEA, with no surprises or PDM's to come. The final ambiguity was inelegant, given the non-thematic resolution of it.

[borealis]

With Olichant on this one. Really tough, but fair. Unlike UglyUncle, I took a while to appreciate the whole theme - that may have helped me avoid his groan of exaspiration! Like tilbee, held up by 15. But it resembled a numerical with the logical order needed to put in entries, and I enjoyed both that, and the feeling that I needed to really work at it. It needed things looking up, but could not be solved by that alone.
Thanks Raffles, for everything except that damned tune which has been popping into my head for the last 24 hours........

[sunny-dave]

I quite liked this (although one of the speakers seems to turn up in various crosswords far too often for my health and temper).

A couple of the 13 were a tad obscure (do the compilers assume that everyone has access to google/wiki these days?) but otherwise it all seemed fair and above board. The title made me smile too.

Thanks Raffles

[jim360]

Borealis: What are you on about, I can't figure it out; don't know the tune, maybe will soon!

[sunny-dave]

I could tell you Jim - but I'd never get off this thread alive ...

[petefoxes]

I think I would have enjoyed this more if the thematic elements hadn't been reprisals of or variations on bits from other recent puzzles. But it was fair and unambiguous in the end, so I'm glad I persevered having found the clues tough at the outset. Thanks, Raffles.

[borealis]

jim360 - google the words under your grid.

[jim360]

I actually do know what tune you mean Borealis :P

[IainGrace]

We seem to be in a minority here. Took a while to crack it and rather enjoyed it.