Listener Display By Aedites

[Ruthrobin]

Very enjoyable, thank you Aedites, and not too much frustrating grid staring.

[AHearer]

Agreed, this was a lot of fun. By some quirk of fate I spotted what was going on quite soon, and for most of the eight worked back from the entry to the solution of the clue. Some of the misprints were tricky, with one ambiguity only resolved by making the message make sense. I'm obviously in need of grid-staring-practice, as that stage took me quite a long time. Many thanks, Aedites.

[Antmark]

Only my second appearance in the Friday club. Enjoyed this one and for a change didn't need a nudge with the endgame.

[starwalker]

Very enjoyable, though I'm still suffering the after-effects of last weeks lurgi. Some very well hidden misprints, and some that I have yet to locate, despite having finished. The grid stare was mercifully short as I managed to anticipate the ninth thematic. Many thanks Aedites.

[Philoctetes]

(Didn't find this thread easily, due to lack of number in title :( )

[aldanna]

Misprints "somewhere in the clue" I always find rather difficult. However, I guessed what to do well before I knew why, and finished up with the message and a complete grid apart from one square. After a fair bit of grid-staring, I realised that the instruction neatly confirmed the missing unchecked letter. An enjoyable puzzle.

[jim360]

aldanna pretty much posted exactly what I was going to say, word for word. At any rate I had exactly the same solving experience.

[easylistener]

Super puzzle. Just the right mix of difficult clues, unusual words and an endgame that made me smile out loud!

[s_pugh]

Well this neatly combines two of my pet hates, word searches and ambiguity. Grid completed in a couple of hours, then several hours of fruitless grid-staring.

Given the nature of the theme I suppose I could potentially be looking for the abbreviated form of one of several dozen possibilities. Or I could be looking for a thematic interpretation, of which there are even more (as many of the possibilities have several interpretations). Finely constructed puzzle, pointless and ambiguous endgame. Enough to deter anyone from the Listener, it has certainly deterred me from wasting any further Saturdays. Rant over.

[fyellin]

Minor request.

When starting a new Listener puzzle thread, please put the puzzle number in the title. I accidentally started a second thread because I searched for "Listener 4383"--using the number like I always do--and couldn't find anything.

It also makes it a lot easier to find this thread in Google.

[fyellin]

s_pugh: You accurately describe how I felt about last week's puzzle. Finding something when I know nothing about the theme, and in which I'm not even sure how I'd recognize the right answer.

Given the theme, you're looking for one of the better known ones. This and 17A were the only ones I knew immediately. A list of all the possibilities is available on the web.

[s_pugh]

Well I think I finally see it (it’d be a hell of a coincidence if the letter sequence were to appear by chance), but it has to be the least convincing endgame ever although it does I suppose give the title some semblance of relevance.

7-odd hours to get that – was it worth it? Categorically not. Thanks for the encouragement Fyellin, but I would never have known that one without recourse to the web and I doubt many of us here would.

[Ruthrobin]

Yes, sorry, it was an oversight, forgetting the number and so sorry for the issue it caused.

[EAChaplin]

Nobody has yet mentioned that there is (yet another) error in the preamble. Not necessarily the fault of the setter, but the editors should have spotted that the numbers in brackets do not refer to the entries.

[IainGrace]

Yes, EAChaplin, this totally confused us. Enjoyed this and cracked fairly easily because the theme is one we know well. Just catching up, having addressed 4382 only in the last day or so because of other commitments - thought it was a novel idea.

[icynorth]

Tough challenge, with some well-hidden misprints. I wish I'd followed my first semi-formed hunch about the theme - it was a doddle once the penny dropped. Thanks Aedites!

[jim360]

In contrast to s-pugh's post I thought this was a good listener. The frustration of understanding what was going on came to an end eventually, in a fine PDM, and while few of the thematic answers were known to me it was not at all difficult to track them down. Also, since we were told that the ninth example was an "instruction" then it was not really hard to track down with specific example was meant either (so far as I can see, only one of the examples can be interpreted as any sort of instruction), reducing the grid-staring phase there too.

Just over a week ago I gave a talk about these sorts of puzzle to various of my fellow colleagues. Fairly well-received, although I doubt that any of them are likely to take Listeners up in a hurry -- as many commented, correctly, the learning curve is rather steep (particularly to access the finest examples). But this offering by Aedites is at least closer to the shallower end, I thought. Tough to get going, but once you spotted what was going on the journey to the end became manageable.

[Scorpius]

I found the misprints very hard to detect and made slow progress until about two-thirds of the way through, when I saw the theme. It sort of caved in after that, though a wrong, but perfectly justifiable answer (with a different misprint) completely messed up the SE corner for me. It took a while before I sorted that out.

I've been trying to make sense of the preamble statement regarding numbers in brackets. If it's an error, it's a major one that should have been spotted, so I'm wondering if there is another way of seeing it.

Enjoyable puzzle, anyway, but I certainly didn't find it the breeze that some here found it.

[jim360]

The comment about numbers in brackets appears to have been removed from the website edition, so it is indeed another error in the editing process. The second this month -- third if you count the awkward "modern, scientific way" comment.

[olichant]

Wow - you guys are all way ahead of me. I found this tough.

Oli

[sunny-dave]

A gentle amble for a Monday evening - though why I always make the 'correct letter' messages harder to spot by starting at the bottom of the grid I just don't know.

Once the penny had dropped it all became a lot easier - and even the grid stare wasn't too protracted as I had a vague idea of what the instruction was going to be.

Thanks Aedites - some very nice clues I thought.