Listener Crosswordno 4391: 22Ses Square By Tibea

[midazolam]

Lovely puzzle by the Listener editors (Tiburon and Kea). Impressive to think these excerpts were published in the paper. I was thinking as I was solving it that I am still in need of a cryptic clue, but I see April's Magpie has come early...

[AHearer]

Yes, an astonishingly original creation, and the perpetuation of the 21SW crossword by the 22SEs deserves commemoration and our thanks. As well as missing cryptic clues (why did I rush through that CAM Schadenfreude?) I had hoped for that essential feature of these puzzles, the PDM -- I don't think seeing the highlighting really counted. Many thanks, though, Tibea, this was an entertaining challenge.

[Ruthrobin]

Yes, the endgame took us a while even though we could see the ambiguity that we had to resolve, but this was most enjoyable and original and a worthy commemoration of the milestone. Thanks to the editors.

[EV_Solver]

I'm afraid I thought this was rubbish. The theme was blatantly obvious, most of the words (of which 21SW was the obvious easiest one) were able to be worked out, and then the puzzle was just a glorified wordsearch to spot the jumbles in the news articles. Not a cryptic clue in sight - just a glorified wordsearch that was a slog and involved little intelligence or thought, simply the ability to spot words in jumbles.

What a waste of an idea and a puzzle. Hopefully there will be a proper crossword next week.

[olichant]

I think this is gong to be a bit of a marmite puzzle. As far as I'm concerned, I really liked it. In part it reminded me of some old Stephen Sondheim puzzles that I stumbled across recently. And it's nice to see something a bit different - and very clever. Took me a while to twig that the excerpts were real, which dramatically altered my perception and appreciation of the puzzle.

Happy Easter to everyone here. And I second midazolam's Magpie plug - looks like there are some crackers this month.

[starwalker]

As Olichant said, something of a marmite puzzle, and nothing wrong with that. In some ways it was a relief to have no cryptic clues with "missing letters" or "extra letters" or "misprints" which "spell out" something. It was different, plain and simple and I enjoyed it. Thanks Tibea.

[jim360]

I've not finished this one yet. The word-search for the final gaps has proven to be a bit of a pain, although I made reasonable progress yesterday -- in part because I was able to find copies of the original articles online, making the hidden words in text rather easy to deduce (before I'd found the full articles I think I'd guessed all but two of the missing words anyway).

I think the novelty value of the presentation might wear off fairly quickly, though, if there's too much jumble-searching to go through to plug the gaps. I'll have a go at finishing today. Either way, though, it's quite an apt puzzle given the full "pondokkie" article and its discussion about how you never know quite what to expect from the Listener each week.

[IainGrace]

Non-marmite view here is that, if one wants to mark a pertinent anniversary in a novel way and, to an extent, give Listener solvers an Easter break, then this puzzle serves the purpose.

[upsetter]

Searching for a gracious way of agreeing with EV solver.
Whilst it would not be right to dismiss out of hand a crossword with no clues a wordsearch is still a wordsearch, however elegant.
Welcome back RR.

[jim360]

Didn't take too long to plug the gaps after all -- although a bit of fiddling eg a wrong solution or two in the top-left of the grid. I would have thought it might have been nice to have the semi-colons corresponding more precisely to the locations of the jumbles/ missing word, eg if you had to pass one missing word before getting to the first jumble at all then "(; xSE ..." would have made that clearer.

Anyway, a very different challenge from usual. Thanks Tibea.

[Ruthrobin]

Thanks, Upsetter. We've been away and rather preoccupied with an unexpected funeral (I suppose they are usually unexpected) after the Listener dinner. Of course, statistics are now available, as it says below the crossword on the Listener site.
Really good news (as well as the Magpie arriving early for our Easter enjoyment) is that the Inquisitor has not died with the demise of the print version of the Independent but will now appear in the Saturday's I. There's another plug!

[fyellin]

I'm with EV_Solver here. I found nothing interesting in this puzzle. A "glorified word search" was the phrase that had come to my mind, too.

One of the things I love about (typical) Listener puzzles is that solving every clue is an "aha!" moment. This puzzle had no moments of amazement or delight.

[s_pugh]

Afraid I'm pretty much in the EV Solver camp too. Although this was a very different style of puzzle and most cleverly put together it was to all intents and purposes a word search, and a pretty tedious one. When I looked earlier and saw the marmite references I'll confess I mentally conjured up another word. Sorry Tibea but not my cup of yeast extract.

[perseverer]

I think I would have preferred it if, for example, the first excerpt (the most significant) had been used to provide the missing words, and some jumble searches, but other entries were just supplied by normal clues. This would have made the puzzle that bit more unusual, while being more true to the theme.

[doctormatt]

Done; I agree most with Perseverer; very nice idea, well constructed, but a few clues could have been included, as the end was a bit of a slog of unconnected words. Happy Easter!

[fyellin]

I know what Marmite is, and I know what a marmite is [thanks, BRB], but I've know idea what's meant by a "marmite puzzle". Would someone elaborate?

[olichant]

fyellin, my apologies - it's a very quirky Britishism. Marmite (the delicious yeasty spread) has had an advertising campaign for many years with the tag line "you either love it or hate it".

Which (having read what I've just written) is at least a better tag line than "the delicious yeasty spread". There's a reason I don't work in advertising...

[Togo]

Loving the Lee Perry avatar. Where's my space boots? I am the government.

[Contrarian]

On the one hand, I am in awe of the ingenuity required to create this puzzle. On the other, I was thoroughly bored throughout the solve.

[pushmi-pullyu]

I'm in the camp that found it completely pointless. For once it's a relief to turn to the Jumbo.

[icynorth]

I enjoyed completing the puzzle, but you left me wanting more of a challenge, Tibea. But thanks for commemorating this, as others have said. Who at the time thought it would have lasted this long? Not many, I'd guess.