Listener No 4615 Ancient Mariner By Tringa

[perseverer]

A clever idea with plenty of thematic material in the grid (once you knew what the theme was.) Some easy clues got me started but then things slowed a bit with one or two fairly obscure definitions which needed a bit of research to resolve and a couple of words which might have been extra but weren't. Not a work I was familiar with, so thanks, Tringa, for broadening my horizons

[Hagen]

Agree with the above. I had a few "extra extra" words too. Not a theme I knew, but it was a delight to discover it. I can't see the significance of the unnumbered words, other than to make it a bit harder to find the asterisked letters?

A debut I think, and an excellent one.

[abns]

I enjoyed this as well. I came here to see if anyone knew why we had unclued entries but I think Hagen’s explanation is probably correct.

[upsetter]

Elegantly constructed with some taxing clues and a lovingly irreverent.
source.

Many thanks, Tringa.

[Philoctetes]

A well-constructed puzzle with a nice mixture of clues, and frustrating gizmos. Just what we want. Except......The more challenging element of the endgame could really be ignored (once more!) (though it is always satisfying to tie up the loose ends, especially being introduced to something I was not familiar with).

[emcee]

A neat construction and some tough clues; it took me a while to understand 21d ... as usual, obvious when the penny drops.

I liked it the title too.

Thanks Tringa.

[Cruncher]

I confess I mostly back solved this, the significance of the moving words only becoming apparent once I'd managed to reduce my contenders for the "extra" words to suggest a plausible source. I also found the unclued entries a bit contrived but hey-ho it was all good fun

[contendo]

It was only after completing it, including the four pertinent words, that a bit of googling lead to the source. Then I realised that two of my extra words were wrong. I don't think many people would identify all 12 extra words correctly. Otherwise a nice crossword and I liked the source.

[sunny-dave]

Yes - a very good Listener - some tough clues, tricky extra words to be extracted and then an amusing (and new to me) quote as the source for the movements and highlighting.

Thanks Tringa - if it is indeed a debut, then it's a very good one.

[Keepatit]

I thought it strange that the unclued words had no relation to one another, and that when anagrammed they came rather close to the first phrase of the source. I wondered whether this was an original plan which had to be aborted

[Scorpius]

I was quite surprised to find another easyish Listener since we've had a string of such puzzles, so I was expecting a toughie this week. Not that I'm complaining.
I enjoyed the clues, but I couldn't see the point of having to find other homes for the misplaced clues. Had the moves been necessary to satisfy the wish behind the statement, the puzzle would have made sense to me, but that wasn't the case.

[Scorpius]

In my above post I meant 'misplaced answers', not 'misplaced clues'

[perseverer]

It just seemed to me that having answers in the wrong place was simply a reinforcement of the first 6 words of the statement. And obviously it added a little to the complexity of the puzzle without any real extra effort for the setter.

[Graejen]

I'm pretty sure I've finished it, in that I have a full grid with highlighting that I'm happy with. But it's frustrating that I have no idea of the alternative source and the statement referred to. I wonder if it's possible to have the correct highlighting just using information in the original source that I am familiar with?

[perseverer]

Graejen, not sure what you are referring to by alternative and original source, and restricted by our convention of not giving things away in the Listener thread on AB, but if you know what the 4 highlighted words all are, what the 8 entries in the wrong place all have in common, and Google those two words with the named person the source should show up.

[Graejen]

Thank you Perseverer. Now that I have the statement referred to (Tringa's explanation for the moves) it all makes perfect sense! I was not aware of that treatment of the original story. Thanks again.