Listener 4165, Variation on a Theme by Nibor

[dr b]

Not much here to cause any grief this week, I think. Not too high on the difficulty scale, but enjoyable anyway.

Now I have no excuses for the afternoon and will be forced to finally clean out my gutters. 65 degrees today - 40 on Sunday. I guess I'll get busy.

[iamamoose]

yes IainGrace, I thought that too.. the setter has tried to mitigate against this a bit -with the letter frequencies- but you'd still have a goodish chance

[word_cross]

OK - so my 'too good not to be true' was in fact too good to be true. I now have the correct solution!

[Zabadak]

TheBear69: Part of my take on this is that my shading DOES represent the original theme: I have a photograph of the assumed object which I could overlay on the shading with virtually no discrepancy.
I am merely saying that Nibor has not covered all his bases with his preamble and, AndrewGS, it is wholly legitimate to declare my end of the stick at least as right as any other. Of course, were I to send my grid to Green Lane, then it might be judged as wrong by the final arbiter and I would feel sightly miffed, maybe a bit cheated. Of course, it might also be right.
iamamoose, as must be clear by now, I did not have any lingering doubts or lack of satisfaction about the solution I reached and finished on. Is there another way of being right other than "in a purely technical way?" If it's technically right, why should I entertain the notion that it might be wrong?

[IainGrace]

To prove the point, iamamoose, we fiddled with various permutations before our PDM and the last one we tried turned out to be bang on, purely by chance.

[Philoctetes]

I'm glad to see Zabadak making a bid to retain his cup! I do agree with him, though. The preambles this year have been a tad sloppy - and I hated the "Mash" one because it was altogether unhelpful. I have nothing against clever preambles that disguise a possible interpretation within a surface one; I like the terse one-liner ones; and I positively relish the odd epic. But some are just trying to seem clever. Bit like the clues, I suppose.

[iamamoose]

I concede - the preamble should have been more tightly worded.

[rabet]

I have copies of some of the Observer amd Listener crosswords from the 1930s and 1940s, by such laegends as Torquemada, Ximenes and Afrit. They are fiendishly difficult, and entertaining, but not one of them requires any manipulation or shading of the completed grid, where there is a preamble it is brief and informative.

[rabet]

Sorry, "legends"!

[iamamoose]

I have to I enjoy the 'endgame' thing , even - or perhaps especially - when it's a little silly. I remember the origami wren with particular fondness.

[iamamoose]

have to say, sorry

[AndrewG-S]

and that is why I said maybe - it could equally be me clutching the wrong end, although here I hope not...

[iamamoose]

Rabet - please can you recommend a couple of classics from that period ? Be interested to give them a go. thanks

[Zabadak]

You guys and gals are too kind. I look forward to see what the "real" answer is in a fortnight's time.

[rabet]

iamamoose ~ the puzzles I referred to are in a book: The Strange World of The Crossword by Roger Millington, first published in 1975 by M & J Hobbs.
If you Google it you'll find that there are copies for sale online. The book outlines the origins and evolution of crosswords with numerous examples.

[iamamoose]

Thanks Rabet. It's in the Christmas list.

[sunny-dave]

Can also recommend this ...

Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

... if you can find one that is reasonably pristine - my 'used' copy had 1AC entered in the first crossword and a big '?' drawn next to the puzzle - the rest was untouched :=)

[iamamoose]

Haha! And did they get 1ac right ?

[sunny-dave]

Yes - but it was in red biro & I suspect it may have been copied from answers where there was a red biro dot in a suspicious place ;)

[sunny-dave]

Oh - and the reason I have just materialised here is that the 4165th Penny dropped with a huge Clang last night ...

[floaker]

Hello, I’m new to this site but have been tackling the Listener for a while. It would be interesting to know what went through other solvers’ minds before their PD moments (but obviously not before the closing date), the distribution and wealth of thematic material lends itself to all sorts of ideas which presumably was Nibor’s intention. One of the best puzzles of the year in my opinion, challenging but ultimately fair and fun.
Chambers Crossword Manual by Don Manley [Duck] contains a number of very good older Listener puzzles and much useful solving advice, cheap second hand copies are available on Amazon.