Listener 4326, Coincidence By Sabre

[TheBear69]

I've searched bu apparently there is no Friday club for this very difficult offering by Sabre. I just got 17acr so I've finally finished. Phew! One of the hardest of the year, for sure. Thanks Sabre!

Happy New Year everyone!

[jim360]

24 hours after release must be close to a record for delay. I have a full initial grid but much staring to work out all the replacements, even with some idea of what is going on. Wow. Saving the hardest 'til last.

[Ruthrobin]

I'm only barely in the Saturday club and depressed by the massive difficulty of this one. It has taken about fifteen hours of struggling and grid gazing - putting this Sabre at the end of the year was 'the most unkindest cut of all' - even if it was an impressive construction with typical Sabresque complexity in the endgame - which has taken twice as long as the gridfill. Thanks, Sabre, I almost prefer your Knights' moves :)

[sunny-dave]

Well on the way - all but three clues solved, most of the initial grid roughed out and a pretty clear idea of what is going on (even spotted the highlighting needed).

But it's been a long slog and (I suspect) a lot of hard work is still needed.

[AHearer]

Yes, indeed a tough one. The penny finally dropped just as I was realising that I had entered the wrong alternative spelling at 4 across (stupidly, as my initial entry did not fit the wordplay). Luckily the further coincidence is pretty clear. Thanks, Sabre, for a good workout.

[tilbee]

As usual a late starter this afternoon, but in a similar position to Sunny-dave. 3 clues left to solve (17a, 20a, 18d), but fairly sure I now have the theme, strong expectation of the unclued entry and have identified the 4-letter example in the grid, so hopefully now just a final tidy-up.

[AndrewG-S]

I am a bit of a laggard on this one, really tough to work through - thank goodness it was over the Christmas holidays so I had a bit of time to keep at it.

[trux]

Am travelling so this has been extra hard work. A lot of fiddling around to make it all come together and the 4-letter highlighting is useful as a nudge in right direction rather than spectacular. Am chuffed to have completed it, and with it, a full year of submissions (although I am wary of fat-fingered transcript errors, especially in puzzles with final grids like this one). All best and HNY to ABers near and far.....

[UglyUncle]

I thought I was doing well yesterday when I completed the initial gridfill, saw what was required as the unclued entry and spotted the 4-letter example. Thinking that the ease with which the example resolved the associated entry would be repeated elsewhere, I decided to leave the slog of deduction and elimination for today - and now I'm just completely bogged down.

[jim360]

Made it to the end. Just about in one piece. Rarely if ever has there been a puzzle where you actually do need to understand everything and to solve every clue properly. Well done, Sabre.

Roll on 2015!

[olichant]

What a toughie. After breezily filling in a third of a grid, I thought Sabre had gone soft on us over the festive season. Not so. It just seemed to get harder and harder as things progressed. Some lovely devious clues - if I'm honest I didn't find it so much fun towards the end. But thanks to Sabre, and a very Happy New Year to everyone here.

Now, where did I put that Magpie?

[UglyUncle]

Five hours and one penny later ... it was hard work, but once I discovered the reason why the pairs of letters took so long to produce a mere two examples, the back-solving into the grid was just a matter of patience. Enjoyable PDM, yes, but - as with the final Radix - not so enjoyable in terms of post-PDM hard graft.

Still, thanks to Sabre for a fair challenge. Despite my initial HSM (heart-sink moment) I now have a 100% tally of puzzles submitted in 2014. It's anyone's guess how many of them were correct, as I don't check the solutions obsessively.

[Cagey]

I am unconvinced this one is a fair fight. I think that far too many answers are under checked due to clashes. Still have half a dozen clues to answer, and I suspect at least one of them is a word I do not know 29d, and with an unknown number of clashes cannot be found by a dictionary search.

[Cruncher]

Plodding manfully on. Six clues still to solve. Some idea of the theme and the central column but as yet unable to fathom the logic behind the misprints. Ho hum

[upsetter]

If anyone else is stuck, we would like to team up [email protected]

[olichant]

upsetter - happy to share a few hints if that would help (olichant 08 at gmail dot com).

Having transcribed my grid, I'm actually not too happy with the final result - but I'm pretty sure it must be right. Famous last words!

[upsetter]

Thank, Olichant - billet doux sent

[IainGrace]

Just getting into this. Most clues solved but problems along the road, as expected. May not finish this as lots of others things to do at this time of year. Happy New Year to all when it comes.

[fallster]

This was a killer! Wish there had been a tad more in the instructions about the final form of the submission.

[S_Alan]

Hi, our paper shop decided to return our copy of Saturday's The Times to the distributors, despite being forewarned that it would not be collected until today!

Might I ask some kind soul to send a copy to me on [email protected]?

By way of thanks, you are invited to have a go at the Christmas Quiz which I compiled for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales Members in Scotland - it was designed to be quite challenging!

It can found by going to this very convoluted link:

http://www.icaew.com/en/about-icaew/newsroom/press-releases/2014-press-releases/regions-2014/sals-christmas-quiz

Thanks in advance.
SAL

[sunny-dave]

Email with attachment on the way S_Alan.

dave