Listener 4184: Claim by Raich

[starwalker]

Having struggled to get started, I found the claim with less than half of the grid filled. Now I am struggling again with the final few answers. Lots of fun though.
Dammit ! There goes the Z cup again for this week.

[Zabadak]

Yeah, not bad, with mostly Times level clues, I thought. A lot of three and four letter words, often with multiple possibilities, made life interesting, and I've ended up with a few corrections to wrong entries, especially in the SE corner. After last week'd tour de force, a rather more humdrum affair and a short word-search style finish, but fun for all that, for which to Raich many thanks.

[AHearer]

Quite fun: I found the lower half of the grid a lot easier than the upper (and not just for the obvious reason).

[Ruthrobin]

Yes, indeed this did not present the challenge of the last two weeks but it has been good to have a far gentler one for a rest, and fine, transparent clues again. There were a few names I had to hunt for in Wikipedia!

[Charpy]

All done bar the checking and there'll be plenty of that this week. Liked the theme, but not the clues very much. I can't see much evidence in this puzzle for the claim that "The Chambers Dictionary (2011) is the primary reference".

[Zabadak]

I kind of agree Charpy, at least inasmuch as my 2003 edition had everything bar one of the names. I'm still using 2003 not least because I've not won this thing yet. maybe I should enter more often!

[IainGrace]

Mostly rattled through this and got the theme but two or three problems in north west corner to resolve yet. Not too challenging.

Got last year's stats. Good number of entries, given that we don't do all puzzles, but about half a dozen errors, including "common" ones and ones of our own devising. Must check more carefully this year.

[AHearer]

Hmmm, yes, I'm in two minds about posting off my envelope for last year's statistics. It's usually too humbling an experience, with so many of those entries I had thought correct turning out to have stupid slips in them. No matter how hard I try to convince myself that I must have made trivial errors of transcription from my rough copy, in my heart of hearts I know the truth to be otherwise.

[Walterloo]

Considering I'm very very slowly working my way through a tough Magpie at the moment with some unbelievably tough clues (some have two extra words! It's a carte blanche!) this was a welcome and fun little solve. Thanks Raich.

[IainGrace]

Finished - and realised why we had problems in top left. First Friday finish, aided by holiday and relatively easy crossword.

[teuchter2]

This must be my earliest finish ever, so it can't have been too challenging. I found the large number of short answers quite tedious, but a fairly pleasing outcome. Now what will I do tomorrow?

[AHearer]

Well, teuchter2, if you're really short of something to do tomorrow and don't fancy coming round to replace the putty in my gutters, try Ifor's CAM puzzle (http://www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/news/cam/cam65/C
AM_65_LORES.pdf).

[TheBear69]

Re the BRB 2011, are clues like 20a still justified?

[dr b]

Not very friendly to overseas solvers, so a bit of a slog for me, but all in all a perfectly fine puzzle.

[trux]

Put me in front line for Z cup : this commemorates a contest I'd rather forget, with an outcome that still staggers me, and a claim that embarrasses me to be reminded of to this day as an Englishman - perhaps all these factors contributed to me abandoning my homeland and living in the comparative sanity of Geneva ever after. But, thanks nonetheless to Raich for the puzzle, which (in comparison to events described) caused me much less of an emotive reaction.

[trux]

(and, another thing, ...) I got held up for quite some while as the first clue I solved was 13a in which I incorrectly interpreted "A cricketer..." for the name of "THE cricketer...." and hence arrived at different garments for women. Harrumph! (at least, now I get one cup for sure!)

[easterfool]

Have I made it - well yes in the sense that I have found everything and made sense of it all. Not keen on some of the entries, especially 39 Down. Otherwise pretty straightforward. It must be for me to manage this so soon. I can read all the threads now. Happy Easter everyone

[contendo]

Done. Not one of my favourites. There should be a ban on clues whose wordplay consists of building the word up letter by letter. However there were some nice clues here, notably 1dn.

[Vagans]

There's an AB thread for the CAM puzzle at http://www.theanswerb...Question1118038.html. Quite a bit harder IMHO than this one.

[jim360]

For all the criticism (some of which seems justified since eg 39d doesn't seem to appear in BRB 2011) I almost made the Friday club on this one. No surprises that the Top half of the puzzle (and 39d but that was easily corrected once I found the claim) proved the stumbling block. I was young at the time of the theme but know of it well so no digging on wiki for me once I saw what the claim was.

An enjoyable puzzle but clearly, if I was challenging for the Friday Club, a fairly easy one. Favourite clue is probably 1d.

[tilbee]

Having warmed up yesterday on the Magpie puzzle that Waterloo is referring to above, and which I heartily recommned, this proved a gentle romp this morning. Clues certainly on the easy side, but thematic content good, and a nice little twist that held me up at the end.