Listener 4261 Chefs By Cubic

[BobHWW]

A nice gentle solve after last week's rather tough one. Sneaky title!

[perseverer]

Scorpius - You are entitled to your view of the puzzle, but you seem so close to getting there that I would urge you to continue, given you know the shape and where it lies. I can't help think that when the penny does drop, and you put all the bits together, your opinion might change a bit for the better.

[Scorpius]

Thanks for the encouragement, perseverer. As so often, the full solution came to me shortly after posting my message. I did try Google, and rather oddly came up with a page of hits to porn sites! I found I'd made a careless error with one of my entries, which didn't help matters. Once I'd corrected that, I saw a possible entry that didn't mean a lot to me, but then discovered the connection.

Yes, the families are connected and the puzzle has more coherence than I thought, but I still think the theme is very obscure. I suppose someone who is totally unfamiliar with the first family might get there by unearthing the second. My use of "unearth" there is definitely NOT a hint, just in case it should send anyone on a wild goose chase.

[sunny-dave]

Hmmm - a very good example of why I shall have to be offered a very good sweetener to subscribe to The Times when my crossword club membership finally expires in a week or two.

Yet again we have an almost trivial grid fill (so not much entertainment there) and then a ludicrously unfocused grid-stare.

Even after some research on the quotation and perusal of this thread I'm precisely nowhere - after far too many hours.

I don't submit, so if anyone would like to email me a fairly direct hint (or even the dratted answer) then at least I can get on with my cough/cold in peace.

Thanks Chaps

[email protected]

[sunny-dave]

Thanks Jim for the title - all done now.

[sunny-dave]

I don't want to hi-jack this thread - but some suggestions on my other thread would be much appreciated :

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Quizzes-and-Puzzles/Crosswords/Question1279270.html

Thanks

dave

[fallster]

Got it finally. I'm not good at these grid hunts, so was looking kind of hopeless for a while. Don't understand the title, so am apparently missing out on some fun. Happy that this was a theme with which I was familiar, yet still took a long time to see it.

[tilbee]

Only able to get around to this today, but certainly a puzzle of two halves. As others found a quick gridfill this morning, but left the end game to after lunch when it all came together. Google certainly needed to confirm the members on the LHS of the grid, but the position of these could be worked out from the others on the RHS which I was more familiar with.

[martdwyer]

I fear that I may not have heard of the relevant people/things.

Could someone drop me a hint here, please?

[email protected]

[TheBear69]

Tilbee, for me it was the opposite. It's those on the left that are most familiar to me; if that family is unfamiliar to one, I strongly suggest you make the effort to get to know them. You'll find it immensely rewarding to go to the source material.

It seems to me that the preamble is somewhat misleading in that it implies that the discovery of 6 family members is to be done subsequent to the discovery of the 32-cell shape. It almost certainly is going to be the other way around for successful solvers.

[fallster]

TheBear69: I guessed the cells involved in the shape first and only then was led to the family members. And even though I was more familiar with those on the left, I got the ones on the right first. Go figure.

[olichant]

Not too tricky - but I enjoyed it more than others. Theme and title both raised a smile.

[youngoffender]

...and the grid stare continues. I'm finding this very vexing, with so little guidance on what I'm looking for. If the theme is as obscure as some are suggesting, surely there should be more of a steer.

[Mesnilpat]

Having been given a hint I have now completed this - I would never have got this on my own and obviously won't be submitting this one. I am annoyed with myself as there is a clear steer in the quotation, which I had noted but just couldn't see the names and didn't decode the very clever title. As ever, it's obvious now, though the shape is not quite what I was expecting.

[IainGrace]

Embarked on ths today, having finished 4260, and bemused by conflicting posts as to how easy/impenetrable this one is. Have full grid but currently in full and lengthy grid stare mode.

[Scorpius]

I don't agree with TheBear69 that the preamble is misleading. He and others may have got the families prior to getting the shape, but it's not the logical way to proceed because there are too many variables. Cubic has provided a perfectly logical route and the preamble is correctly worded in accordance with this. I've made criticisms earlier, but this is one aspect of the puzzle that I find admirable.

[Negomi]

Hi there, very pleased I finished this. For a moment I thought the theme would be witches, but then "got" the title so my order was 1 title, 2 families, 3 shape. Enjoyed it.

[perseverer]

If a quick grid stare produces results, then well and good, but like Scorpius I decided on the shape then experimented till it fitted with the required number of cells. Then it was fairly easy to spot the right hand family. One member of the left hand family stood out, and I suspect most solvers would recognise this name, but if you were not familiar with this name, as tilbee has said it would be a struggle without the Internet. That quibble apart, I thought this a perfectly reasonable Listener, OK with a fairly easy grid-fill, but with a fair selection of thematic elements that all fitted together.

[Scorpius]

Sorry to harp on about this, but it just might help someone who's still struggling to see the wood for the trees. Pace perseverer, experimentation, in the sense of trial and error, is not necessary. This part of the puzzle is an exercise in simple logic, based on two reasonable premises. I won't spell it out any more than that since I'd be breaching the prevailing code of ethics on this site (I hope I haven't been too specific already). Hopefully, someone will see precisely what I mean.

[s_pugh]

Another fantastic construction - what a bumper year we are having! After a quick grid fill yet again left with the dreaded word search for what seemed an eternity, until it was the title that finally dawned - duh! Unfamiliar with any of the family members but all sprang into place. Thanks to Cubic.

[JackDeCrow]

Well, I certainly made heavy weather of the word searching, but the final cascade of PDMs has put me in a much better mood about the whole thing. Very impressed by anyone getting the title first - in the end I did it in the prescribed order, just more carefully than my initial attempts to do it by eye. Am a little surprised that there wasn't any colouring involved in the final stages as the BRB seems quite specific on a certain aspect of the theme! A bit of a classic in the end for me, though - thanks Cubic.