Listener 4251 Unchless By Corylus

[dr b]

Certainly, a breather after last week's toughie, but good fun nonetheless. Not much else to say about this one, I think.

[trux]

Quite agree, dr B: the ingenuity of the design is excellent but the relative simplicity of the gridfill means that the enjoyment doesn't perhaps last long enough. Anyhow, there's so much sport going on at the moment that one has plenty of other distractions. Thanks to Corylus nonetheless for the inspired design. (And, like every week, I still learned some new words. What a joy these Listener puzzles are).

[lyrabelacqua]

A pesonal best for me, but given the relatively straightforward nature of the puzzle I cannt get too excited about that! Back to the cricket.

[Ruthrobin]

Indeed, it was a pleasure to have such fun and such a speedy gridfill after last week's long struggle. This reminded me a little bit of the one where half the clues were in invisible ink - but I do wonder how someone working with only Chambers and no word search machine completes such a grid.

[lyrabelacqua]

Er, slowly?

[dr b]

I would be interested to know if anyone tried this without using a word searcher.

So much sport going on? Let's see, basketball, hockey and football are on summer break, baseball has been off for 4 days for the All-Star break... nope, not seeing it.

[Simplex]

Fair point, Rr. Maybe there is a completion path after entering the clued answers that is guaranteed to yield up unique unclueds by searching the BRB using the first few starting letters of the words, but it would be very clever setting. And there are some of us saddos who have absolutely no interest in sport at all...

[Alekhine]

A welcome boost to my weekend fence-repair programme ... unless the cricket intervenes.

[Ruthrobin]

DrB and Simplex, I too prefer crosswords to sport but it is difficult to ignore the golf and the Tour de France that are coming to an end this weekend. I think feeding potential words into the on-line BRB would help the setter create this with unique solutions, but, nevertheless, this is a very clever compilation and, as some of us keep on saying, it doesn't have to be immensely difficult to be an extremely enjoyable crossword.

[AHearer]

A nice distraction for a hot train-ride, but nothing to further overheat the brain. Good fun, though.

[jim360]

Clever construction, fun to have to fill in the gaps. Perhaps became a bit mechanical at the end, but that's just splitting hairs. Overall I enjoyed this one, so thanks Corylus!

[upsetter]

well, at least we didn't use quinapaulus, but eBRB wordsearch was a bit too helpful sometimes - Has a 12x12 unch ever been set?

[Mesnilpat]

Once the penny dropped this was good fun - I don't seem to have a proper noun or two-word phrase though. I have obviously got something wrong and need to take another look later.

[aldanna]

Even I found this easy, helped by a pdm before I started. Although I was prepared to resort to Word Wizard, I completed it by 7.00 pm with only the BRB and Bradford- this is just a reply to a comment above, not a boast; I have always made it clear I know I am one of the lesser mortals on this site. So, no excuse to avoid the raspberry jam making today. Celebrating a major wedding anniversary next weekend so will have no time to obtain Listener, much less pick up a pen.

[s_pugh]

Uncharacteristically unchallenging.

[Scorpius]

I thought it was clever of the setter to construct a grid with no unches and a unique solution with half of the entries unclued. I would have liked a few more thematic entries, but you cannot have everything.

[grace_slick]

Bland and disappointing even for a Listener rookie like me. Rationing of clues, blanks to be filled by wordsearch or lexicon thumbing (wow how exciting!), and just four thematic entries - I'd expect at least 8-12 of that nature normally, and maybe some symmetrical placement too.
Filled in record time and on reflection very disappointing and definitely not the source of 'fun' some found - fully checked crosswords are common in the US and should ideally stay there. Sorry Corylus, it was maybe tricky to construct but just not to my taste.

[tristram37]

Corylus was a prolific setter in the 80s and 90s but this appears to be his first puzzle since 2001. Nice to see him back. These days I tend to define a good puzzle as one that I can do. By that token this was brilliant!

[IainGrace]

Agree with general sentiment. Having abandoned last week's on the basis that apparent level of complexity outweighed our level of interest in solving it, this was too easy. There was no subtlety even in the thematic treatment.

[starwalker]

Just caught up on last week's stinker and found this much easier going. It may not be to everyone's taste, but variety is the spice of the Listener.

[Philoctetes]

Was that it? Where was the "good fun", other than that found in all puzzles? Obvious "theme" (if such it could be called) half-heartedly implemented. Not really a Listener.