Saturday Times The Listener 4195 Sum by Hotspur Saturday June 23rd 2012

[contendo]

Well that wasn't too bad. Now for the bottom half.

[dr b]

Yes, the grid fill was OK but only since I got the quotation pretty early on, and worked backwards to detect the misprints. Two-word phrase easily found, but even after some reading I'm not sure I understand enough about the topic to know how to finish this.

[Walterloo]

Ditto. Grid nearly filled. Quotation found. Knowledge of theme miniscule. Chances of finishing likewise. But I will continue on. Some great clues here.

[Mesnilpat]

Just bought the paper and logged in, what happened to the Friday night club?

[dr b]

After an hour or so of pondering, I realized that I do not even know HOW to proceed, much less figure out an answer given knowledge of what to do. Time to put it down for a while (possibly forever) and see if inspiration strikes after a few days away from it.

[starwalker]

Closing in on a full grid, now that I have the quotation. Daren't even consider yet what to do after that. I think it fair to say that the Friday night club have been well and truly sandbagged by this !

[Texasetes]

Has there ever not been a Saturday night club?

[Zabadak]

In my case, sandbagged by manflu/bronchitis: can't give this the concentration it needs. Might give it a go later - looks kind of interesting.

[Mesnilpat]

Goodness, this one has beaten me so far. I have a few grid entries, have no inkling of the quotation but suspect I know the theme. If I am right, the final part of the puzzle is likely to be well beyond me.

[pushmi-pullyu]

With everyone else finding it so hard, I fear there's not much hope for me. Got about half the clues but only the first 2 words of the quotation, which are less than illuminating. Will struggle on and see how far I can get.

[Charpy]

It's not as hard to find the process as several of you seem to think. It doesn't require any advanced learning of a particular topic.

This puzzle is excellent - tough clues, tough PDM etc. and many thanks to Hotspur. The grid construction must have been a nightmare.

If I have one criticism it's that I didn't find the 6 letters to be entered in the bottom right of the grid to be particularly compelling.

Think I'll mull this over for a few days before submitting.

[tilbee]

Enjoyed this so far. Still two clues left to resolve and the process to determine. Have a little basic knowledge of the theme, due to some recent necessary research. Will continue to plug on.

Did anyone notice the explanation of the title for Taste and Fancy in yesterday's Times editorial (in relation to a Spelling Bee) ?

PS: Apologies to anyone who has corresponded with me, who may have received some Spam Emails from my Yahoo account this week, which seems to have been hacked. Hopefully this is now resolved.

[cluelessJoe]

Thanks for the encouragement Charpy - but for now after such a struggle to fill the grid I'm doing a dr b

[TheBear69]

I agree with Charpy; after sleeping on it, I discovered the process fairly quickly. I thought the response to the quote was excellent, so we disagree on that.

The correction to the misprint in 32a is eluding me, but no matter...

[cluelessJoe]

Israeli city TB69

[Texasetes]

I had visions of Hotspur defeating me, but then inspiration struck.
Charpy's right; thankfully no specialist knowledge is required, just persistence.

Thanks to Hotspur for constructing an excellent grid.

[TheBear69]

D'oh!

[vetuste_ennemi]

Pushmi Pullu, I found the first four words of the quotation very illuminating. Which has left me floundering, like others here, with the final bit I simply don't understand the explanations of the theme given by the usual sources.

[IainGrace]

Checking in after a week or so of improving the brain with Provençal rose. Finished 4193, we think, but not certain of every nuance, including the title. Like others, stumbled a bit on the denouement to 4194, because the "thematic" instruction is rather clumsily expressed. Good puzzle, though, and got there in the end. Not hugely enthused by a reading of the rubric for 4195, but onward and upward.

[TheBear69]

Am I wrong or is there not an error in the last input to the process? Or is the output an alternate?

[Texasetes]

TheBear69, after research, I'm tending towards the latter.