Listener 4253 All Change By Dilwitch

[dr b]

I can certainly appreciate the masterful job of constructing the puzzle, but this one ranked low on the fun-o-meter for me. No pennies to drop or endgame to solve, so it was just a matter of slogging through a lot of quasi-cold solving and asking "Is that weird word really a coin"? By the end I felt about obscure coins like the little girl whose book report on penguins consisted entirely of the sentence, "This book gives me more information about penguins than I care to have."

[starwalker]

I felt that this was a bit of a dig at Listener solvers who will have come across many of the words in past puzzles, but sadly cannot always bring them to mind when needed - hence the slog element. Fun, in a way, but somewhat spoiled I felt by the repetitions.

[Simplex]

dr b, Au contraire, lots of pennies, or similar specie, were dropped. Was Dilwitch being frivolous in overloading us with 'pdms'?

[Ruthrobin]

Yes, indeed, what a lot of pennies dropped! This was probably more fun to compile than solve but thanks, anyway, Dilwitch.

[olichant]

I agree with all the above. To be honest, I found it a bit of a slog, though it was educational. And some neat clues. I hadn't even noticed the (possible) PDM in-joke. Back to the Magpie...

[Spoonboy]

I can honestly say, I have no idea what you are all talking about!

I assume The Listener is a newspaper?!!

[jim360]

Used to be a magazine with a challenging crossword. Only the crossword survives, hidden deep within the cavernous expanse of Saturday's edition of The Times.

[IainGrace]

More of a mechanical than intellectual exercise. A contrast to the superb 4252, which we have just finished.

[trux]

One has to agree. It looked like it was going to be fun to begin with, but then became a bit of a chore. Repetitions were definitely a shame and rather took the gloss off the otherwise noble construction. But this was made up for imho by some very neat clues, often truly deceptive - for which many thanks to Dilwitch.

[EAChaplin]

Many (not so) happy returns. Yes it's the anniversary of the notorious 4201 which brought many of us much grief:-)
Anyone all correct since? Not a calender year but nevertheless..........

[upsetter]

To plagiarise Gary Bellamy, Vat is point this crossword? We suspect that Dilwitch was disappointed by the repetitions, too.

[jim360]

Made it to the end, at last, after last week's disappointment that's proved too much for me. This one had a clever enough theme, although I wonder if it might have been better to aim for more uniqueness of replacements -- examples being by having down clues giving normal answers with coin replacements, and across clues working as they do here. No matter, thanks Dilwitch for a clever construction. I enjoyed his first listener, Downsizing, which was also one of the first I attempted.

[lyrabelacqua]

Not up to the mark, to be franc.

[tilbee]

Agree with the general sentiments expressed here. There was some fairly tricky wordplays to contend with, plus the challenge in some cases of very few checked cells, but overall not up to the enjoyment level of (say) last week.

[emcee]

I'm with everyone else here: not a lot of fun and rather fiddly. It has obviously taken the setter a fair time to construct with many constraints therein but it would've been nice to have had unique coins throughout.

The clues, however, were very clever in parts. 15ac (the Solent clue) was the last one I solved and have only just fully understood it.

[IainGrace]

Having got so far, not sure we will spend more time on this. Really not very interesting.

[AndrewG-S]

Zcup for me this week, I think you are all being a bit polite about this one. No PDMs, lots of back solving and guesswork, limited help from crossing letters, repetition, obscure words which are not educational etc. I hope the cricket brings more joy. Sorry Dilwitch but this one did not do it for me.

[Spoonboy]

Thanks dr b: I might give you a platinum spoony award just for choosing me :))

[Coalminers]

My Bradford's will forever more fall open at page 145.

[aldanna]

I am totally in agreement with dr b's original comment. I was slowly filling the grid (very slowly, to be honest) constantly turning from book to book when I decided I was not sufficiently interested to continue. Hoping for a higher ranking on the fun-o-meter next week

[Scorpius]

I'm in full agreement with the above sentiments. I still have 3 clues to solve though I have the coin replacements, I think, but I don't know whether I have enough interest to persevere.
I have some doubts about fairness, though I suppose all is fair in love and war. Take 9dn, for instance (one of my unsolved ones). Here we have a 7-letter word that has effectively 4 unchecked cells. If one of the crossing entries is unsolved there is precious little to go on. An even worse case is 13ac (another unsolved one for me), where 4 cells of a 5-letter answer are effectively unchecked. This has proved a lot tougher than last week's with none of the rewards.
It would have been fairer and more enjoyable in my opinion if coins had been swapped between answers.