Listener 4183 Continental Drift by Shark

[Ruthrobin]

For the second week running we have a brilliant new Listener setter (though Shark appears regularly in the IQ, EV and Magpie series) and what impeccable cluing. This was sheer pleasure with pdm following pdm wasn't it? Ingenious novelty in the device and the 'jumbles' not as daunting as they appeared at first sight. Thank you, Shark!

[teuchter2]

An excellent puzzle, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The adjective PDM came in the middle of the night and enabled a speedier finish this morning. There are a couple of across entries where I don't actually know the defined word as yet, but am in no doubt about the entries.

[pushmi-pullyu]

Once again, the glass of wine is the catalyst that puts the final piece in place. Very enjoyable, and some lovely clues.

[aldanna]

Very enjoyable, and surprisingly straightforward to sort out the jumbles - in fact, one or two sorted themselves out for me as so many letters crossed. Until the very end I was wondering if I really was correct, but the final step reassured me.
But how can drb be so good at Listeners with no BRB?

[regorr]

Hi folks,
Another one finished on Saturday (from the paper so I'm not a Friday club candidate). Brilliant! with mini-pdms in clues & a massive PDM at the end. I guessed the odd-one-out fairly early on which made some of the scrambles easier - altho most clues were unambiguous.
Long may Shark continue to delight us.

[borealis]

Lots of plusses here; accurate, unambiguous, enjoyable. Some gems in the clues and a real feat of construction - once more we hope for a setters blog explaining how! Thank you, Shark.

[freiheid]

I'm probably guilty of curmudgeonliness, but I wasn't so impressed by the clues - what is the surface meaning of 'pellet Asian dish' or 'head and look a foot'; does fromage frais have 'contents', etc. But there were some nice touches among them.

Still not sure what 'Ian's gutters' refers to, though I have a definite answer for 10d.

[Ruthrobin]

Freiheid, I think you earn this week's Z cup. Not seriously taking issue with you and not wishing to disobey our 'code of conduct' on this thread where we give no direct answers, but surely the ideal clue has exactly what those clues you list do - a Chambers definition and, in this case, wordplay which jumbles the answer to be entered. Look in Chambers at your un-jumbled words and you'll perhaps see why we are all so delighted with this week's offering.

[tilbee]

Fully agree with general sentiments expressed so far. Another very worthy Listener and enjoyable solve. Have resolved everything except wordplay in 20d - feel I must be missing something obvious !

[starwalker]

tilbee - yes, you are.

[sunny-dave]

Another cracker - enjoyed that enormously - to me it's always a sign of a good puzzle when I'm rather sad to have finished it - which I certainly was with this.

< @tilbee - yes, took me a while - explore the BRB onwards from your answer >

[tilbee]

Thanks sunny-dave - see it now

[Cruncher]

I'd like a punt at the Z cup this week. For me the PDMs were apparent fairly early on leaving me with most of a grid still to fill with a lot of jumbled answers. And although it was fairly clear where we were heading I'm not sure that down answers lead to only one unambiguous outsider - especially if you are not constrained by the BRB: 30dn, for instance, has had a wide range of adjectives applied to it over the centuries. Harrumph

[the_heisman]

I enjoyed it too although I preferred last week. In sauciness terms 20 down gave me a bit of a shock and taught me something new that I would not normally expect from a crossword!

[tristram37]

I think what Freiheid was getting at was the third requirement of a good clue - that the surface reading should make sense. Pellet Asian dish is nonsense as it stands, as is Head and look a foot. They may be accurate clues in terms of their definition and jumbled wordplay, but nonetheless they are still nonsense. I am still struggling with the clues, especially 10d where no possible words seem to fit the clue. However I am sure light will dawn eventually!

[Alekhine]

After some fairly easy recent puzzles, this was much more like it.

Some very clever clues, although I felt that a couple of the compound words were a little 'loose'. One minor dissatisfaction ... it's possible to establish the jumbled entries without bothering to get the unjumbled words ... but I'm sure none of us did that.

Nice finish, although I did see it coming. Great fun, Shark. Thank you.

[Staurologist]

I agree that some of the surface readings here were not exactly scintillating, which is a fair criticism, but to describe them as nonsense is perhaps going a little too far. "Pellet" is a verb as well as a noun, so the clue could conceivably describe what you might do to an Asian dish; and commas around "foot" would make 42 sensible. The BRB's entry for gutter should help those puzzled by 10.

For those interested in following up Cruncher's comment about 30 and other germane items, Abraham Roback's dictionary of ethnophaulisms is very entertaining.

[Philoctetes]

I think Cruncher is being a little too precise. Yes, there are several options for some of the adjectives, but most of them have the same relationship to the others - nowhere does the preamble say they have to be unambiguous, As for the rest, well, I started finding a couple that were outside the set, but had to dig a little to find options that were inside the set (while thinking of different interpretations of the set - I was put a tad off-beam by 18). Even then the end solution was unique whatever adjectives were used. A pleasant work-out, and a lovely endgame.

[sunny-dave]

@the_heisman - yes 20d is 'interesting and educational' - but for heaven's sake do not accidentally use google to search images (instead of text) as I rather alarmingly did when verifying :+()

[IainGrace]

We are just embarking on this and have about half the grid completed so far. No PDMs yet but sensing something. As with last week, encouraged to learn from earlier posts that further pleasures lie ahead. Listener on a roll now maybe (unlike Aberdeen and Liverpool).

[magichour]

Took some time to get a run at this due to a busy weekend, but have just had discovered the 'odd one out', which has led to a wonderful PDM. I can see where it's all going now. Still quite a lot of solving left, but the final grid should be pretty.