Listener 4331 By Loda

[Ruthrobin]

Well, those who have been moaning that the early ones were too easy have what they wanted here. This has been a real challenge, growing easier as it progressed, of course. We still have some ends to tidy up but have enjoyed the challenge. Thank you Loda. (For a real laugh, you should look at the comment on the Listener website on the Stick Insect crossword - it seems somebody managed to get it wrong!)

[Ruthrobin]

Great fun with a wonderful finale!

[Ruthrobin]

Come on - I can't be a lone Friday club! Important change - I have been told (and have checked the Times website) that clue 41 has been corrected and is now indicated as (3) - this was a fairly obvious error during the solve.

[Monkmonk]

The wrong length held me up for quite a while but otherwise I enjoyed this puzzle.

[AHearer]

That's more like it! As ever with this sort of puzzle I was too hasty in entering some answers, and the rubber had to be kept near at hand, but it all came out beautifully in the end. Thanks, Loda, for an enjoyable challenge.

[doctormatt]

All done except for one answer which does not affect the theme. It's driving me nuts! Very clever and enjoyable.

[doctormatt]

As is the way, just got it!

[Contrarian]

Yes, I managed to enter a plausible alternative for 7 which really confused things for a while.

Thanks Loda.

[upsetter]

That's more like it but still lacking the essential element of despair.

[s_pugh]

A distinctly more challenging Listener after recent offerings, marred by two things; I was held up for ages trying to find a 4-letter solution to 41, and also spent a long time fathoming 46 which appears to have 2 (arguably 3) unches. Surely this isn't allowed? I’m reasonably happy with my answer but dislike such ambiguity. Thanks to Loda for a clever construction.

[s_pugh]

Should really have said a double (arguably triple) unch ...

[jim360]

I suppose some people on the stick insect did what I did at first and deleted rows 1, 3, 5, etc... so that the remaining cells were garbled. This made a bit more sense than 1, 2, 4, 6 given the "alternate rows" instruction. Oops!

Nearly done with this one, just a few gaps left. Rather a lot harder than anything else from this year, but thankfully the misprints have in general been easy to spot, so the cold-solving aspect wasn't too bad.

[Whenland]

Yes jim360, with the Stick Insect one we only deleted alternate rows and columns. Doh!

[tilbee]

Tough enough without having to identify the incorrect entry length for 41. Finally resolved all of the titles, some of which were somewhat obscure for me. However a good challenge from Loda.

[EdgeofDarkness]

That's a real laugh that somebody managed to get it wrong. That really shows where we're at. The 'Never been wrong' set. Aye, right.
And before you get so smug, not everyone obsessively starts their solve at 4pm Friday.
Has the Listener crossword been dumbed down ?
Meursault.

[s_pugh]

In Yorkshire we only get the paper on a Saturday, not like these Southern folk that get Saturday's paper on a Friday - I remember them days mind when I used to get the last train out of Liverpool St of a night!

[tilbee]

Ee bah gum s_pugh ! Unfortunately down here we suffer the same deprivations of having to go out and search for a paper on a Saturday which is actually delivered with all sections intact, which seems to be increasingly common is not the case.

[Speravi]

In Re: 4328. It seems that we have to endure not only ambiguous or incoherently specified pre-rambles, but also instructions that are similarly impaired. The 'incorrect' interpretation of the perimeter message seems to be the more logical to a number of us and the resulting nonsensical message merely a manifestation of the current 'anything goes' mentality. It's sad to see that Ruthrobin is happy to laugh at, and gloat over, other people's failure: some of us recall the gentleness and kindness shown to you when you began your first postings to this site.

[jim360]

I didn't think RR was gloating, really -- if you check out the comment on the website it says that Stick Insect's puzzle was "an attempt to ensure no incorrect entries; the attempt was unsuccessful," which struck me as humorous understatement. Obviously it's a shame that some people tripped up on Listeners, sometimes for trivial mistakes (of which RR's made her fair share!) and sometimes here when perhaps the instructions ought to have made 100% clear that following the perimeter instruction would reveal a further instruction (which the garbled letters just wouldn't do).

[vetuste_ennemi]

Surprised to find that the PDF for the 800 missing words from Chambers 2014 proved useful. Thanks again, MamyaLynne.

[Ruthrobin]

Yes, Speravi, not laughing at those who sent in a peopled entry but at the tongue in cheek amusing comment on the website as jim360 kindly says in my defence. Indeed, I am criticised on this site for invariably being too 'generous and positive' when some of you use nasty critical words like 'underwhelmed' about compilations that have taken the setter months to finalise. I am certainly not in a position to gloat over anyone who makes an error - I make plenty.