Listener 4203

[Philoctetes]

Well no one seems to have noticed it was going to be a numerical. And i see that someone by the name of "Zabadak" has already commented on the Crossword Club site in a somewhat Z-Cup winning fashion. Obviously inspired by the Games and wants his cup back.

[jumperjudy]

I rather like the sound of a hieroglyphics crossword, Arcticpenguin, could be quite fun. Anyone fancy writing one?

[Oyler]

Just consider this thought experiment for a moment Arcticpenguin. What if, when crosswords first appeared in the 1920s, they weren't crosswords at all but actually crossnumber puzzles. So it would be The Listener Crossnumber instead. After a few years the occasional word puzzle creeps in and proves to be popular amongst some solvers. As you like the word puzzles would you want to see them banned? Just a thought!

[dr b]

The "ban the numericals" chorus reappears with startling regularity. I would would have to research the topic a little more thoroughly in order to say anything definitive, but my sense is that it happens around four times per year. Give or take.

[logophile]

Coalminers ... or lokking at the sequence 7 - 10, perhaps s/he is from Oz !!

[teuchter2]

I really enjoyed this one, probably due to an inspired guess at the novel title fairly early on, but it is fair to say that there is a very logical way into it. My only problem is that I have two entries (intersecting) where alternative answers seem possible. They do not impinge on the novel title in that they are not asterisked clues. Does anyone else have the same problem? From a quick read of the entries so far, it doesn't seem as if too many people have got very far with it.

[TheBear69]

teucher2, I think you are ignoring one of the constraints specified n the instructions.

[TheBear69]

Sorry I misspelled your name, teuchter2!

[IainGrace]

Jim360, agree that numericals are exercises in pure logic, but so is Sudoku and that's not a crossword either. Crosswords are all about definitions, synonyms, wordplay and, possibly, some literary etc references. The clue is in the name. But this argument has been beaten to death before, so hey ho. The two camps will doubtless never be reconciled.

[jim360]

Teuchter - Bear's probably right about the fault. Do you mean at 27? If so, check one of the key points in the preamble.

[jim360]

My own introduction to Listeners came through attempting the number puzzles first. And then switching to the word puzzles. Number ones are more easily accessible and a great way to bring new solvers into the mix. So in that alone they're surely worth keeping.

[Arcticpenguin]

Feeling a bit less grumpy tonight having finally finished this puzzle. So rather than banning numerical puzzles perhaps we could allow one say every 10 years - after all there are any number(?) of numerical puzzles in the daily papers - such as Su Doku (wasn't there a Listener one called Pseudo Clue a few years back?). What I do admire about this puzzle is that the misprints seem to have completely invalidated the use of Excel which was probably the whole point of the exercise. Interesting . Must swot up on hieroglyphics.

[jim360]

The thing is, Sudoku isn't really a number puzzle strictly. Using ABCDEFGHI would do just as well. Killer Sudoku is a number puzzle but in a different way from cross-numbers. Why not just let us have 4 of these a year? This was a toughie but well worth it - misprinted clues that still can be solved was very impressive indeed and I wouldn't have missed it for worlds.

[teuchter2]

Yes, I do mean 27 and I have checked the point I think you are referring to in the preamble, which rules out one option, but I still have more than one possibility. Does this mean I have everything wrong? I have checked over all answers and everything else works.

[Coalminers]

27d, given that the misprint must be >1 and can't be equal to any of the other two letters, should constrain you to just 2 possibilities. The aforementioned bits of the preamble should then rule out one of these, leaving a unique solution. I trust this isn't too revealing to anyone else!

[jim360]

If you're still struggling teuchter, send me an email with what you have so far and I'll give it a look - the usual place, [email protected]

[teuchter2]

Have got it now. My mental arithmetic had gone a bit awry. The old brain cells aren't as sharp as they used to be!

[JackDeCrow]

Extraordinary. I often think this about the numericals, but doubly or triply so with these misprints, how the setters know they have achieved a single possible solution amazes me.

[Coalminers]

I did allude to it earlier, but are there any amongst you who have been doing the T2 crosswords in the Times recently who have also spotted the coincidence?

[AndrewG-S]

I thought this puzzle was genius. I was on holiday so only had the two sheets of paper the crossword was printed on, a pencil, rubber and calculator. With head scratching there was a perfectly logical way through, with pretty limited calculations needed to get each clue (typically no more than about 6). How ingenious to come up with a tricky numerical which did not rely on number bashing but seeking out a number of logical steps! With the misprints also being part of the logic sequence I thought this was perfectly fair and a nice twist to numericals. Back to those awful wordy ones next week I suppose.

[tenflags]

A mind meld