Listener Crossword No 4246 Construction By Shackleton

[trux]

As one would expect, this turned out to be a real star turn. Amazing grid construction which all works out oh so beautifully. Not as fearsome as one might think at the outset, but still most awe-inspiring. Many, many thanks for the joy of the ride, dear Mr Shackleton.

[Ruthrobin]

The grid fill has taken me forever but the lovely aspect of this splendid Shackleton challenge is that the missing solutions appear as the fill progresses. All tremendously rewarding with a fine little bit of twisting at the end. Many thanks Shackleton.

[Grubb]

As often for me, a slow start but speeding up as the grid filled. Midnight arrived with the quotation still to find but all was revealed in the morning light. The revelations as the grid filled made this much less fearsome than it had appeared.

[Coalminers]

No you're not, Ruthrobin. I'm his top fan!

[AHearer]

An absolute delight. Shackleton never fails to educate and delight -- many thanks.

[AndrewG-S]

Yet another brilliant Shakleton crossword. In addition to other comments made I would say this is some of the best cluing I have seen, great surface reading, pithy and with numerius misleading red herrings. Excellent. Thanks Shakleton.

[starwalker]

Another stunning puzzle by a true master. I'm getting worn out by all the new things that I'm learning this year.

[jockie]

I agree with all that has been said, despite still having the final step (the replacement of the 3 letters) to work out. There would seem to be four locations, none of which have yet jumped out as thematic. Plough on!

[jockie]

Doh!

[dr b]

I can only echo all that has already been said, especially "Doh!".

[teuchter2]

Yes, this was an absolute delight. I really enjoy this type of puzzle. My one query is about the first letter to be entered of the overlong answer. Should it be the first letter of the answer, or the third. I think the latter is more satisfying, but have a niggling doubt that it should be the former.

[Simplex]

teuchter2, I think a careful reading of the preamble resolves the dilemma.

[the_heisman]

I am taking my time over this and savouring it. Shackleton is my favourite setter from the impossibly brilliant Sine Qua Non to the utterly ingenious Hemingway one ( the Olympic one was pretty impressive too).

[teuchter2]

Thank you, simplex, you are quite right. Dilemma resolved, but it shouldn't have been a dilemma. I think at the time I had my mind on the tennis, rather than on what I was doing!

[Arcticpenguin]

I would also like to join the Shackleton Appreciation Society. My all-time favourite Listener is still Much Ado about Nothing. This one wasn't quite so convoluted. A pleasure nevertheless.

[tristram37]

I am really sick of these carte blanches. This may be a fantastic crossword for the cognoscenti, but having solved 18 clues I have no idea of where to start filling the grid. Am I the only person who prefers to have puzzles where solving one clue helps towards solving another? I expect I shall abandon this as I have most of the previous non-stop succession of carte blanches.

[Cloverjo]

I'm with you, tristram37. I've solved even fewer clues than you, though, and will probably end up abandoning this one. Most Listeners look intimidating at first glance, but if you've got a place to start grid filling, they're usually doable, as you say. I'm glad I'm not alone!

[tenflags]

A construction indeed Shackleton - very good and very enjoyable.

[perseverer]

I had solved over 30 clues before I made a serious attempt to fill the grid and after that things fell into place quickly, but in retrospect I could probably have started on the grid a fair bit earlier.

[Scorpius]

Outstanding clues, a very finely constructed grid and an endgame that was, thankfully, not too hard to work out. I have a feeling that it's the first, or maybe the second Shackleton that I've managed to complete.

I have some sympathy with tristram37 and Cloverjo. There have been quite a few carte blanche or semi carte blanche puzzles this year. I must admit that I found filling the grid of this one rather a slog. I don't think I was able to make a start on the grid until I had 24 or more clues cold-solved and even then I made several wrong guesses initially, because of the high number of 5-letter, 6-letter and 7-letter entries, besides other features of the grid. I only really started to enjoy it when I saw an alternative location for one entry that was causing me problems, after which I made far better headway.

Having said all that, the carte blanche approach is fully justified, even if it makes things tough. And, to be fair to the setter, many clues were not that hard to cold-solve.

[tilbee]

With other commitments this weekend I have had to dip in out of this, but having now completed the final step I agree that this was a real joy. Failure to contemplate the grid before starting on the cold solve meant that like Perseverer I delayed beginning the gridfill far more than necessary, but at least this meant that this was completed quickly once initial answers were finally entered. The third sentence in the preamble sent me down somewhat of a blind alley, so reverted to engineering the construction by deducing the author and then searching for a relevant quotation. Many thanks to Shackleton.