Listener 4019

[u10]

Look's like the new Listener website has closed the back door to obtaining the crossword. Perhaps we'll have to buy the paper instead. I can think of one of our "friends" who will be happy!!

[JackDeCrow]

Now that is disappointing !

[cluelessJoe]

.. always buy the paper anyway - but it was always nice to have a Friday evening crack at it!

[jabone]

Well it works out at less than 50p a week to subscribe (I have no connection with the Times).

[midazolam]

from the listener website there was a problem with the format of the grid - they say it is fixed but there is still no link

when it does appear it will be "au contraire by sabre"

i am sure the usual link will appear at some point, but i will get the paper in the morning as usual

[cluelessJoe]

.... hmmm, thanks Midazolam - a Sabre indeed. I reckon the new Listener year is about to start getting very tricky!

[Quizmonster]

I've always been astonished that so many Listenerites - honest as the day is long, all of 'em! - have been happily using the "back door" means of access for so long...ie taking for free what the very providers of the crossword themselves charge others for.

[Clamzy]

And right by your posting is an ad. of a rather threatening nature about TV licences. I don't suppose we Listener buffs are any more or less honest than the rest of society.

[Deviant]

I always buy the Saturday Times, but I was more than happy to have the extra evening to do the Listener.

As I don't actually like the normal Times crossword very much, I'm not going to pay an extra �25 a year just to have the Listener a bit early. It was also less effort to print it off the website than prising the rest of the family off the PC on a Saturday morning to scan the Listener!

[eddery]

oh do grow up Quizmonster.

Like Deviant - and I am sure so many others - I also always buy the Saturday Times but found it nice to be able to make a start on a Friday evening. As far as I am concerned, I therefore pay �78 per annum for my Listener and am happy to do so - I don't think that ranks as taking anything for free.
Your latest comment (alongside so many of your others aimed at rankling those who enjoy the Listener) is as welcome as an itch in an awkward place.

[Quizmonster]

But you couldn't help scratching, eh, Eddery?
It was not I who used the term "back door" method or suggested certain Listenerites might "have to buy the paper instead", was it?

[Speravi]

Yes, it was, you ungrammatical, pestilential individual.

[AHearer]

With a classically difficult Listener puzzle to tackle I'm surprised you've got time for all this. Perhaps some of you have given it up as too hard and taken up sniping as a hobby instead.

[bobbycollins]

For lesser solvers such as myself, this is going to be tough.

After my first scan of the clues I felt in need of a little light relief, so tackled Saturday's Times and Guardian. What treats! The Times itself is more akin to a Guardian offering with a feel of "Paul" meets "Bunthorne". The Guardian is a wonderful Araucaria puzzle. I hope that my brain is as active as the grand old man's in thirty years time. Both are highly recommended.

Pity about the sniping, but I can understand the umbrage taken.

Let's keep it friendly, Guys.

[Lewap]

Ok, found the Listener, read the preamble (and understood it, which is always a bonus), answered the first clue...and it has been downhill ever since...oh well, such is the way with Listener!
My respect goes out to all those who regularly complete Listener - for me it is once in a blue moon. Last week was my blue moon it seems. Loda's On and On was my first success in I don't know how many weeks!
I still think it bizarre that the prize is a copy of Chambers Crossword Dictionary...don't we all have that already???
Keep lighting the lights,
Lewap

[midazolam]

blimey that was probably one of the toughest listeners for long time - partly because one is unsure where the entries link, but the clues were also tough to cold solve. Trying to answer enough to start entering them was a challenge (i am still unsure of the wordplay in some clues)

no doubt about the denouement with deeper levels than i first realised

thanks sabre

[Quizmonster]

Speravi, if your comment was addressed to me...
a) Did you actually read the question?
b) Ungrammatical, how?
c) Who are you, really, behind the green cloak?

[cluelessJoe]

b) "ie taking for free what the very providers of the crossword themselves charge others for."

.. maybe it was an objection to your ending your sentence with a preposition? (- though that may be a debatable transgression of the "rules" )

[starwalker]

Another excellent and satisfying puzzle from Sabre, with all that has come to be expected - tough, but fair clues and a lovely denouement.

[robinruth]

With regard to prepositions - Do you knw the nice one about the man who asked the Yale librarian, "Excuse me, could you tell me which section the dictionaries are in?"
She replied, "Sir, first let me tell you that in this establishment we do not end a sentence with a preposition."
He thought for a moment then asked, "Excuse me, could you tell me which section the books are in, *******!"