Listener 4239 Laureate By Wasp

[dr b]

A fun puzzle, I thought. The theme was unknown to me, so some Googling once the message from the omitted letters was clear was needed. Wikipedia to the rescue. A little more work was needed to get all the unchecked letters to work out, but all in all not too difficult and an enjoyable workout.

[Monkmonk]

I object when you have to enter a completely pointless word at the bottom of the grid. If you didn’t know what to enter then you would never have completed this puzzle.

[jim360]

I have five unchecked cells left to fill. It seems to me, unless I've gone wrong somewhere, that there are two equally valid choices I could make that use the correct unchecked letters the correct number of times. On consistency grounds one choice seems more sensible than the other but it does seem to be a bit of a toss-up. I'm hoping I've made the right one, though I could argue for the other.

[starwalker]

Totally new to me, but then I am of a certain age ! Lots of fun and another week of learning something new. Thanks Wasp.

[AHearer]

Thanks, Wasp. Fun, and showed me that there was a lot more to the surname than I had realised.

[Grubb]

I agree, jim360. I've opted for the consistent approach, too. I had no idea that I knew nothing at all about the theme!

[Alekhine]

Hmm. A little dissatisfying.

For example, I wonder if the required surname needs to be treated thematically. After all, the illustrative surname had to be.

[TheBear69]

Alekhine, if it does need to be treated thematically, I confess that I have not inferred any consistent rule that would tell me how to do that. The six thematic items do not seem to have been treated consistently.

[dr b]

It seems to me that the preamble would have to state "thematically altered surname" if that was required. As it stands it asks for a surname, so it's hard to see how an unaltered surname could be considered wrong. But since I do not submit the puzzle my free advice is worth exactly what you've paid for it.

[TheBear69]

I agree with you dr b; I wonder if the thematic situation with the circled surname is intentional or an error.

[trux]

I agree that this was fun even if I think the preamble could have been more precisely written to reflect what I am pretty sure Wasp intends solvers to choose (thereby making the end result much more aesthetically pleasing in its consistency of treatment). I cannot believe that the surname needs to be modified (and, if it did, I find no logic as to how one would do so). I knew nothing of the theme (had only heard of 10d before) so educational, for sure. Many thanks for the entertainment, Wasp.

[teuchter2]

I agree that the surname is rather superfluous as knowledge of the theme is clear from the other entries, but I did quite enjoy this one. If there are two ways of entering the unchecked letters, then I should imagine that either would be acceptable. Mine is in the post, so I'm not going to worry about it. I was away last week, so got 4238 done, but only by Thursday once I had access to BRB to check things out.

[x_word_fan]

I see no ambiguity - I think the preamble is clear.

[emcee]

What an unusual theme - I would never have done this without Google. I too have found ambiguity with the final gridfill.

I think the preamble is OK and the circled cells are intentional.

Thanks Wasp.

[Ruthrobin]

Yes, no ambiguity. I am travelling and had to do this with no Internet - just Bradford and Chambers on an iPad - quite a challenge. But the theme is familiar to some of us of course - especially 10d, of course.

[AndrewG-S]

I thought this was great fun and the added bonus of being a pretty quick solve. I have not seen any ambiguity and can't see any reason to enter the name thematically. On another note while I have not checked I understand that I may have a copy of brewers landing with a thump on my doorstep soon - so rather sadly my five year losing streak seems to have been brought to an end. The only real winner is Royal Mail though as the cost of the stamps more than offsets the price of brewers.

[jim360]

Yes, on further reflection the ambiguity I was referring to disappears. I think I was put off the scent by the fact that on a couple of occasions there is no choice at all, so I didn't put much thought to the pattern emerging in the choices for the 11 cells which could be filled without trouble.

I found this to be a bit of a grind, and the thematic entries took ages to reveal themselves, but when at least everything fell into place it was worth the wait (apart from my missing the connection between the way the 16 cells were to be filled). Thanks Wasp.

[Scorpius]

I'm afraid I found this a bit of a mess. Some of the entries were ambiguous until one had crossing answers (4, 7, 14, 17). 6 was completely ambiguous as to which part was the definition; the omitted letter could have been any one of three.
If one doesn't recognize the theme I don't see how the puzzle can be solved without the internet, which is a break from past practice and Listener guidelines.
I think my solution is correct, but I cannot be absolutely certain since there appears to be an implicit contradiction in the preamble in the phrase "six more thematic items". As far as I can see the clued entries are NOT thematic since the preamble states that their entries are as per the wordplay.

[jim360]

The source material should also be available at most local libraries, so it's not really in breach of the "no internet-only themes" rule. I had that problem, too, of not knowing what letter to pick a couple of times, but it usually sorted itself out fairly quickly. I hope!

[TheBear69]

Scorpius, I think it the phrase "six more thematic items" is ok. The preamble does NOT state that their entries are as per the wordplay. It states that they are entered as described by the omitted letters.

On the other hand, I agree in great part with Scorpius re other problems with this puzzle. Furthermore I think that there is one of the unclued items for which it is not the case that the omitted letters describe the entry.

[jockie]

I have a horrible feeling that this is going to be like KOHb. There seems to be a variety of slightly different ways of completing the thing, but perhaps I've yet to discren some overarching thematic solution to the ambiguities. One obvious question (which of course I cannot ask) is how many

Self-censorship supervenes here.