Listener 4201, Translation by Sabre

[upsetter]

Have grasped the theme but the clues seem to be extremely opaque this week (apart from the easy ones) - is anyone faring better?

[sunny-dave]

Still plodding along here - is my assumption that a relocated letter must not then be the mis-print in its destination word correct ?

[BlackHugh]

Just finished! Solved the remaining the clues and after following a (possibly deliberate) red herring got the thematic words last night. Worked out the knights moves this morning (after correcting my entry for 10d) and it is in the post. I agreed with magichours thoughts on entering the contentious part. Back to 4102 now - with only the grid-staring to do.

[BlackHugh]

sunny-dave - I don't think your assumption is correct

[sunny-dave]

Oh botox - that makes it even worse than I thought ... back to the drawing board

[Alan7777]

I hate to think how much of my time has been spent on the Olympics, the PGA Championship and this crossword but the outcomes have all been very positive and uplifting. I know it should be about taking part but I would have been far less happy if I'd failed to finish this.

[crosswhit99]

Thanks Texasetes - normally I would tend to agree with you, but the preamble of 4198 didn't preclude submitting 24 across in capital letters !

[Texasetes]

crosswhit99 - 4198 was a deviation from genuine Listeners in more than one respect. Had the word 'initially' been omitted from its preamble, there would have been no room for misunderstanding, and no ensuing furore.

4201 is most certainly a genuine Listener puzzle.

[hellbent]

Scorpius - because Sabre always appears to set his crosswords with such attention to detail, especially in the clue writing, it can be dangerous to think he has gotten away with something imprecise!

Regarding 29d, if you read through the entry for the word used as the seemingly incomplete definition, your misgivings may be allayed!

Staurlogist - you are correct. I too can remember Sabre using AA in BB to mean ABBA in the past. However, Jonathan Crowther's "A-Z of Crosswords" includes the following when discussing Sabre's project for putting the complete "oeuvres de Sabre" into electronic form.

"...he (Sabre) is suffering intense embarrassment at some of the the terrible cluing devices he has encountered. The use of 'in' as the imperative form of a transitive verb was not uncommon (so 'X in Y' would really mean 'Y in X'). Fortunately, he last used this device, which he now abhors, in 1982..."!! [my exclamation marks!

So it would seem that Sabre has seen some of the errors in his ways, and that you must have as long and as fond memories of Sabre puzzles as I do!!

[taittinger]

All done and dusted, but wordplay of 12d "Unusual..." still unclear. Any comments on a postcard to:
[email protected]

[BlackHugh]

taittinger - sent you a mail

[ichkeria]

I was relieved to see the solution to 4198. It would habmve nmmade a nonsense of the theme to not enter the letters in the way stipulated. Also what on earth is wrong with the definition in 29 dn?
I don't think Sabre gets away with things other setters wouldn't. The fact is he thinks of things lesser setters don't always think i'of.

[crosswhit99]

Regarding vague definitions, lots of setters use them, and lots of editors allow them. If the first five letters of 29d hadn't been checked without translations then I doubt this one would have been. It's a matter of fairness to the solver, just as 4198's preamble didn't preclude the use of upper case letters in the final grid submission. I wonder if there was a late amendment to 4d here to avoid a repetition !!

[tramart]

Let's hope Sabre provides a Setter's Blog.
I'd be interested to know how he proved that there was only one solution, and if he did so without recourse to some rather complex recursive code.

[logophile]

Given the 6 mandatory misprints in the thematic entries (which also provide misprints in 4 other entries) it's surely not that difficult to rule out alternative grid fills manually ?

[ichkeria]

The definition to 29dn isn't vague!

[borealis]

15 days on, back from holiday, where I discovered no Times - wonderful crossword.

Don’t suppose anyone will still read this but it was so good I have to post. Interested that some saw the theme early and it helped their moves. I am afraid I had the full grid before I saw the theme - I was red-herringed for some time, like one or two others here. There are two other nearly-thematic entries that I suspect were possible inclusions in early versions, so I will be really glad to see a Sabre blog if there is one. Some of the best cluing this year, but I agree with some re. loose 29 definition; the BRB qualifiers would seem to make the clue easy to modify to correct this. About 9 hours of hard but most enjoyable work.

Sabre, many many thanks!

[ichkeria]

(sigh) look up the definition for 29dn in Chambers and you'll see the clue's answer given explicitly. Not that such proof should be needed

[Mysterons]

Agree with others that the definition at 29d could have been qualified to make it less vague, but as crosswhit points out, it was very well checked, so just about fair.

[Texasetes]

Having just read the online solution to this puzzle, I'm now waving goodbye to my hopes for an all-correct year. It seems a waste of a lot of work to trip up on a technicality. I wish I'd made the blunder with Arsene le Wenger instead.

Anyone else admit to messing this one up, or am I alone?

[starwalker]

No Texasetes, I am also a messer-upperer as I suspected after I had posted off my entry.