Listener 3993

[cruciverbali]

Today's challenge is Argentum by Radix. I'm off camping now, so lets hope the rainclouds in the Lakes have a silver lining too !

[mad max]

many thanks for link

[cluelessJoe]

Many thanks C .. have a good weekend, hope it stays dry!

[midazolam]

thanks c - i am glad the whole crossword is not playfair

[Philoctetes]

I see the online version has had a slight problem of scale again - or is this a big hint that the Playfair is very, VERY important :)

[Ythelon]

Thanks for the link. I have been a hoverer for some time and have enjoyed reading your discussions over the past few months.

I have been attempting The Listener for longer than I care to remember but am going through a bad patch at the moment with the puzzle etc.. ( I won't go into the other factors .) I particularly enjoy the references to the current puzzle, including the subtlest of hints, as long as they don't give the game away - and the general camaraderie that exists within the group of The Listener faithful is something I would like to share ; I hope that you will welcome me to your community .

I have great respect for Radix as a setter and have no doubt that this will be a stern test.. His contributions to the messageboard at The Crossowrd Centre are alwys worthy of note.

[midazolam]

welcome Ythelon

I have noted on that website Radix is often the source of reason and therefore not only a great setter/solver but an all round fair-playing chap!

I think you have summed up this site very well - but there are others who do not think so

midazolam

[bobbycollins]

Hi Ythelon. I'm pretty new here myself.

I am sure that you will enjoy the civilised discsussions that take place, and the general feeling of mutual respect that they engender.

[spiderFreak]

Well after staring for ages at an almost completed grid and thinking where do I go from here, it clicked and came together. One of those ones you have to persevere with, I reckon.

I thought 38a was a neat clue.

[jamesah]

I've finished the grid, got a somewhat muddled message which I haven't quite worke d out yet. All I can see is that four unknown words have to be encoded using an unknown key word. I guess I'm missing something!

[Philoctetes]

Yup, it's another case of nine days to look at four blanks hoping that the inspiration for the reason behind the puzzle hits me. Only one slightly odd bit of the preamble that might be a hint. I need a cuppa, methinks!

[Walterloo]

Hello, I'm also a new member like Ythelon. I've always found your questions and comments interesting and helpful and this time I have to admit I'm also stuck on this week's challenge. I am, like the previous two threads, staring at 4 blanks, having worked out all but (I think) one word of the message. Forgetting the number Listeners (I'm rubbish at those blighters) I think I've done quite well so far this year but now I'm up against a wall. Any hints would be welcome!

[spiderFreak]

I think that the key hint is in the preamble: "the wordplay always leads to the entry".

[Clamzy]

But the four we are staring at are unclued and have no wordplay.

[spiderFreak]

You have to follow the instruction elicited from the extra words, but even after that, the wordplay still leads to the entries in the grid, as it says in the preamble.

[Patch49]

I've been reading D Sayers "have his carcass" in which Lord Peter deduces a Playfair messsage but it hasn't been much help with this one! Should I guess at the Playfair word or try and work backwards, using the 4 letter pairs from the unclued words?

[Cruncher]

So far I've established that there are a number of clues where the wordplay leads to an answer that is related to but different from the definition. My guess is that one is an encoded version of the other. But I can't yet construct a Playfair square from that. That said I'm trying to do this whilst languishing in temperatures of 45C by the Red Sea where there is a national dearth of Chambers dictionaries so some of answers are more hopeful than verified - especially 1ac where the connection between a granny and a bit of an aircraft so far eludes me....

[eddery]

Hi Cruncher - I'm struggling with those slack definitions too, but don't think I have yet found quite enough of them to point at all words needing to be involved in step two. From some other setters you might view them as just slack clueing, but I think Radix is a stickler for grammar so suspect they are indeed some kind of hint.
I think you are fine with your answer to 1ac ... except when you come to consult Chambers to verify, you will find that the granny relates to a bit of a chimney rather than of an aircraft.
Enjoy your 45 degrees - it's absolutely siling it down back at home!

[jamesah]

Still staring at the grid! I think I have an idea what to do but am not clear which eight one-word answers are referred to. Should it be obvious? It isn't to me. If I've got the instruction right what does 'permute' mean in this context? Any hints would be very welcome.

[Scorpius]

To Patch49: I don't think you'll get very far trying to guess the keyword. Listener editors generally do not accept puzzles where the code word or phrase is guessable.

I've yet to establish what the eight one-word answers are, having found only 6 odd clues. In 4 of those the definition doesn't match worplay, but the answer from the wordplay can be modified to get the definition. Two other clues have got some completely redundant words apart from the one that generates letters for the message, though their wordplay and definition do match. These are the ones that puzzle me most.

[Mysterons]

What if there were just 4 'odd clues', as you have identified, whose answers can be permuted from the wordplay - perhaps then these answers could be Playfair-encoded in their 'opposite numbers' ('pairs') similarly permuted ?