Listener No. 4453: Army & Navy By Shackleton

[AHearer]

I made heavy weather of this at first, and admired the way some of the misprints were quite deviously hidden. I was lucky in the end-game, spotting a likely anagram which turned out to be correct: I'm not sure I'd have solved the cryptic name indication without that. There was still more to do, though: what a rich mixture. Thanks, Shackleton, that was a fine construction and a great work-out.

[icynorth]

What a delightful puzzle! I just spent my lunchbreak on the supplementary instructions and hit the 6-5 issue, as I see everyone else has too! If this isn't a mistake, then it can only be intended to deceive, which is a shame - everything else fitted so well.

Thanks Shackleton - I forgive you!

[midgler]

The blanks are presumably separators, which - if I have the right name - places them unambiguously and also makes 6 + 5 (+3) fit the available space. But what worries me is the lack of any relationship between the letters being replaced and the replacements. Unless I'm missing something, we have to erase three solutions and replace them with a representation of a name which is unrelated and uncheckable (other than that the name is common to both expeditions and its coded representation fills 14 squares) How does this add to the complexity or elegance of the puzzle?

[AngryUncle]

Sorry, midgler, but what is there that needs to be separated? Your name in common must be different from mine if the third blank causes you no difficulty.

[lyrabelacqua]

Beautiful, just beautiful. No ambiguity on six each. On reflection, I should have seen it much earlier. But lovely. Thank you Shackleton (again)!

[midgler]

I simply meant that if each letter is separated from the next, that would require three blanks. But clearly there is something further about this puzzle that I have yet to divine.

[Scorpius]

I've finally resolved the dilemma. Subtle? Yes. Devious? Yes. Clever? Brilliantly so. I, along with most others, was misled, but whether I was deliberately or unfairly misled is open to debate. Whatever the case, my opinion of the puzzle has been enhanced.

If the setter is following this thread he must be chuckling to himself.

[midgler]

Eureka. I can only echo the praise being heaped on this puzzle. Re-reading what I said above, the first half was completely right and the second completely wrong. Genius.

[midgler]

In fact it's almost as if the author wrote the book with the express purpose of begetting this puzzle 84 years later....

[Osirun]

Is me reading the rubric through carefully another 1000 times likely to pay off with a PDM, do you think?

[Hagen]

Damn. I thought I'd cracked it when I posted yesterday morning. Alas I now realise my "solution" doesn't work after all. I don't want to claim credit falsely, nor mislead those still struggling with this infuriating endgame, so apologies.

[Scorpius]

Osirun, I don't think reading the preamble another 1000 times is likely to pay off. In my case observation rather than interpretation and deduction got me there.

[midgler]

Osirun, I suggest you focus on reading D rather than the preamble...

[IainGrace]

Agree with the broad tenor of previous comments. The 6/5 dilemma is capable of resolution, as is the line above the grid - but it is an unwelcome example of the Hare trend. Not to be encouraged.

[perseverer]

Is the 'above the grid' just the editors reacting to the Hare comments about submissions having to be within JEG's preferred format?

[kdgs2]

Finally the penny dropped this evening - and it was actually worth the wait. I'm with Scorpius, the misdirection is bordering on unfair, but after the fact, it's completely valid and self-confirming. A worthy follow-up to Shackleton's two Gold Cup winners.

[midgler]

It only seems unfair because most of us solved this part of the puzzle the wrong way round - ie by guessing the name based on research, and then coding it (resulting in 6,5). The trouble with this short cut is that the replacements could be made in any old row. But if the puzzle is solved in the order that the setter evidently intended, there is no misdirection. You first get 6,6 and then, by applying this to the specified row, arrive at the name - which you can then confirm by reference to the two expeditions. However, I'm still uneasy about the extra line, which doesn't seem to add anything further to the instruction to "apply H to the title".

[Cruncher]

Finally got there. Was led astray by my initial google search, fascinating as Mr ABP's literary output is, and later by the 6/5 vs 6/6 debate on here. But the final version seems unambiguous and, like others, am amazed at how much Shackleton gets into a grid

[Hagen]

Really have got the coding now - am I the last? In all honesty I doubt I'd have got there without the hints here and elsewhere. Yes it's unambiguous (so fair, I suppose) and certainly a very clever use of the source material. Whether it justifies a gridfill-endgame time ratio of one to about 8 is another matter. I realise that one can't expect to knock off the Listener before Friday dinnertime every week, but personally I wouldn't want to see too many puzzles with this amount of misleading. YMMV, and that's a good thing of course.