Listener 4500 : What Have We Come To By Kea

[starwalker]

I shuddered when I saw the name of the setter and I was totally wrong. This puzzle is extremely approachable and I felt that the clues were very generous at times. A newcomer should not be afraid of this. Thanks Kea, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

[upsetter]

Agreed starwalker - in our favourite 20 this year.

[Hagen]

The easiest this year so far? Not that I'm complaining - spring is here at last so there's loads to do in the garden, and I was glad to have this done and dusted pretty quickly. I enjoyed the puzzle but fear that some of out more demanding contributors may take the title of this one rather literally...

[Alekhine]

I take it that the title is appreciated?

That aside, this wasn't much, was it?

[Philoctetes]

No, it was not the toughest. But it was well constructed, a good mix of clues, and sufficiently interesting to induce me to keep going. I thought I had reached an impasse with an excursion into Indian cinema, but awoke with the right idea in my head (OK, was it necessary to wake me up at 05:00 on a Saturday, brain?)

[Cloverjo]

Oh, I'll have another look at this then. On first glance I thought 'Not for me.' Now you've all said it's easy I might be able to get somewhere :)

[Flocker14]

One of the aspects of the Listener I enjoy is the variation in levels of difficulty. As someone's pointed out there are other things to do. It only struck me later how apposite the endgame is. Thanks Kea.And now for the garden.

[upsetter]

Thanks Flocker14 - that completely passed us by - talk about dense.

[IainGrace]

Entertaining puzzle, and a pleasure to have the occasional puzzle where one can just solve and enter the clue answers without having to omit and jumble letters or similar, albeit that a standard Listener probably ought to present a greater challenge.

[Cruncher]

Enjoyed the denouement most. Always fascinated when you find a message hiding in the grid that you hadn't seen before. For me the preamble was confusing and spent too much time deciphering the message from all the possible letter correspondences for each clue/answer

[12barblues]

Not who you want to see if you’re trying to finish off the Magpie. However clues were accessible and the highlighting doesn’t really require the rather cumbersome device. So back to a rather fun knight’s tour......

[Cloverjo]

I often struggle with The Listener, but I like to have a go. Nearly finished.
I didn't find the preamble confusing. When you've got the answer to a clue you can immediately see what the required letter for the message is. No deciphering needed.

[emcee]

I found this quite tougher than most here. Sure, there were some straightforward clues but there were very tough clues too. 24dn was the last I entered and the wordplay took some wheedling out.

I thought the only weakness in the puzzle was the final stage: I didn't need to fathom out the combinatorical problem to discover the phrase; I saw the 30 cells pretty readily in the grid.

I will, however, now go back and attempt to find the message for completeness.

Thanks, Kea. Always entertaining.

[olichant]

Obviously Kea can be much tougher than this, but I didn't find it as easy as others, either. Good fun.

[icynorth]

Like emcee, I spotted the highlighting, but I haven’t found the systematic way to decode the message that some have alluded to. Is it worth persisting with it?

Thanks Kea, but I’m not sure I’ve appreciated this one fully.

[sunny-dave]

Well that rolled over and lay down quite quickly - which is good as it was the third Listener in 24 hours on my post-holiday catch-up and I think a full blooded Kea might have been a bit too much.

Nice puzzle though - thanks Kea