Listener Crossword 4023 - Pentomino Factory by Oyler

[starwalker]

Another week, another thread. This week's Listener is the "dreaded" numbers puzzle, which actually looks like it might be fun.

[Mysterons]

Thanks for the word of caution, perseverer. Quite agree with others here, this was the easiest numerical for a long long time. The first seven blocks fell into place quickly (11,7,9,2,10,5,6), although if I remember rightly, 2 and 7 could have been interchanged at this stage. Confirmation that the remaining 'hole' had a unique fill could be made using this Applet. I didn'st see the point (pardon the pun) of the comment in the preamble about touching corners, since this would have only applied if four blocks had touched corners (when 4 colours would have been required).

[cruciverbali]

If you are all at a loose end without The Listener this weekend, why not take a look at today's Azed Competition Puzzle ?

[robinruth]

The other half of the robinruth partnership has actually managed to complete this but I, the literary half, am absolutely astounded that you can all consider this easy. I have had to go so far as to construct a little pentomino board and a set of 12 different pentominoes - and now i am colouring them. Is it true that there is a numerical only once every three months or so? Please tell me how we know it is coming so that I can hide.

[midazolam]

the numerical listeners are scheduled for the last date in feb, may, aug, nov

i started by constructing the pentominos but subsequently found the wikipedia entry which gives pics of them all

[lordbadger]

Good advice Cruciverbalist.

Colouring-in has never particularly stimulated me, but it was something for my 6-year old to do I suppose. I usually have a bit of a rant about these tedious numerical so-called �crosswords� .. hmmpphh .. I mean, well, if we�re going to have endure them, the editors could at least give us something that�s going to cause us more of a challenge than simply finding three different highlighter pens. Gahhhh.

[JackDeCrow]

That was odd. After initial reading of the preamble, thought it might be really tricky. Some time later (rather less than the time it normally takes to complete the numeriocal ones!) I couldn't decide if I'd been really lucky or just failed to understand something! Off to find some coloured crayons. Still, 1 numerical puzzle down for the year.
P.S. Cruncher - apologies, my last post on the previous thread about 5 eponymous entries was another typo in the S/T school (although arguably closer together !)

[cluelessJoe]

Thank you Cruciverbalist.
Lordbadger, "simply finding three highlighter pens!" - I wish! In fact it took me longer to find the b****y pens than to do the puzzle ... having moved everything out of our study / bedroom ready for fitting a new carpet, I had obvioualy stashed my colouring kit somewhere extra safe. Two hours of repeatedly rummaging through boxes of assorted junk before I finally unearthed it lurking in a forgotten box under our bed. Doh.

[Mysterons]

Sorry to hear that cJ - what colour is your new carpet ?

As I completed the second colour in my grid today, I did wonder why a third should be required ?

(and to avoid confusion for grid entry, my Bs do look suspiciously like 8s)

[cluelessJoe]

Hi Mysterons ... carpet is quite close to B coloured (and hence distinctly different from 8 coloured).
I too wondered whether to risk just the two colours & trust JG to accept that white is the third .. but in the end opted to play it safe and swing an extra slug of lead

[robinruth]

We had that same discussion as it looked fine with just two colours and white. Since, for some, white is not technically a colour, would we then have completed it with two? I doubt whether the Listener scrutineers would be so petty as to consider that kind of twisted thinking - or impose it - would they?

[Mysterons]

I think it comes down to the phrase the (= all) pentominoes must be coloured in (my emphasis). Leaving a set of blocks uncoloured would not fulfil this instruction, though I wonder what would happen if somebody took the chance ................ ?

[Deviant]

I came to the same conclusion, Mysterons - definitely colour all 3.

Enjoyed the puzzle, but I completed it faster than any puzzle in the 8 or so years I've been doing the Listener.

[perseverer]

Just shows what a paranoid bunch we Listener solvers are! Lawyers could earn a fortune arguing over the wording of the last para of the preamble. I think you could make a case for saying that leaving one set white fulfils the second and third sentences, and at one point I even began to think that it was a trick - you had to leave one set white to use the lowest possible number of colours. However, the last sentence saying any distinguishable colours counters that.

Have we not got better things to do with our time than discuss colouring in?

[kwyjibo]

My heart always sinks a bit when I see it's a numbers puzzle, but I still do them. At first glance I thought this would be a nightmare but it was the easiest numerical puzzle I can remember, you didn't even need a calculator. Having said that I enjoyed it more than the last few, but still not as good as a crossWORD.

[Mysterons]

You're quite right, we should really be following C's lead and getting on with this week's Azed.

(By the way, which colours did you use perseverer ?)

[cluelessJoe]

Our colouring-in discussions pale into minuscule insignificance when stacked up against the occasional thread on another site. I seem to recall that Samuel's "Hunt" kept them going for days ... and they still hark back to it whenever a magic marker is mentioned.

[perseverer]

The colours of the flags of Benin, Cameroon, Guyana .....

OK Will have a go at Azed - never had much success in the past, but then till last summer I occasionally looked at the Listener, failed to understand the preamble and settled for the jumbo cryptic. My first Listener was Tour de France, where I highlighted the Eiffel Tower by shading with ordinary pencil - couldn't belief such an intellectual pursuit as the Listener would involve colouring in.

Sorry, no more about colours.

[Walterloo]

Walterloo here, the guy who said recently that he hates the number ones and that he was rubbish at them. Well, even I managed to finish this one! I left it alone over the weekend but picked it up again yesterday and after a little work I started to piece it together. Thanks, Oyler. More like that please, but I can only imagine the next numerical is going to be a stinker, full of logarithms and algebraic tangents and hideous things. With no colouring.

[Philoctetes]

Well I felt cheated, as I enjoy the usual tussle of finding the starting point and then slowly working it through. Much more pure logic - same effect as an ice bath, I feel. That said, i did struggle for some time until I realised that I had one too few 2s in one of my lists of factors. And the colouring got me in touch with my inner toddler. Let's hope next week's is a total stinker

[easterfool]

Thanks to everyone. I have enjoyed the thread as much as the puzzle. the only problem now is that I have to check on teh colours of the flags of Benin, Guyana and Cameroon... thanks for that too, perseverer.