Listener Crossword 4024 - An Additional Symmetry by Waterloo

[Apache4D]

After last weeks colourful and interesting diversion (think my times tables are in much better fettle now!), thought I would start this weeks thread off, if I may.

This certainly looks like an interesting concept (...90 degree rotational symmetry...) and for me very spooky as I was working on an idea like this myself.

However, good luck to all and happy solving!!!

(Waterloo = Walterloo - l, hmmmm?!?)

[Cruncher]

Done. That was good fun. It's going to be jolly fiddly fitting all those clue numbers in!

[Mysterons]

P.S. to Speravi

Once you have made a start around the periphery, consider the arrangement of the eight 5-letter lights. They share four (internal) starting points, so there are only two possible configurations from the outset, given the fourfold symmetry. Their numbering means that one of these would be impossible.

[JackDeCrow]

Agreed Cruncher - good fun indeed, and certainly fiddly. I think I may have spent longer shading in the bars than colouring in last week's effort!

[Mysterons]

Apologies, there are 4 configurations in theory, but the numbering and letters you already have will sort out the right one.

[Philoctetes]

Yes, I asked for a stinker, and this is some of the way there! Finally got round to polishing it off, and only one answer confounds me in the wordplay department. If I were being picky, I would say there are too many unchecked cells for the size of grid. And I do not bubble with zeal at all this cold-solving.

[turnerjmw]

Profound admiration for all those who have finished this. Speravi and robinruth, thanks for your efforts to point us lesser mortals in the right direction, but can I ask you (or anyone else) to explain "start by considering the position of the four symmetrical 4 letter across lights, they can only be in one position from the start". I'm obviously missing something basic, as I can't see this.

In case anyone is concerned I might be swelling the dinner table ranks under false pretences (unlikely, given that I can't fill this grid in at all!), I never submit my answers. Not why I do it.

[turnerjmw]

I'm sorry, my previous post was to Mysterons . . .

[robinruth]

5 across has to come before 6 across and clearly must go in the same direction as 6 across. Since we are dealing with 90 degree rotational symmetry, that sets the position of the other three four-letter words.

[Mysterons]

Not necessarily turnerjmw, but even if your perimeter is not as complete as Speravi's was back then, you can still make some progress:

(i) 5 across must start on the top row
(ii) 7 across must therefore start in the left-hand column
(iii) 7 across must start in the first cell of the second row - this fixes the starting points of the four 4-letter lights
(iv) When their clues are solved, the direction of these lights is clarified by surrounding answers (eg in the perimeter)

NB It's not necessarily the case from the outset that 5 and 6 across must run in the same direction.

[robinruth]

Thanks, Mysterons, your last point is clearly so (yet another useful tip in thinking for those of us on the learner curve) - luckily I hadn't even thought of it this time, as it would have added yet one more complexity to the creation of this grid - in addition to the placing of that warped 2 'down' and all its symmetrical mates.

[Speravi]

I now have a completed grid together with bars and numbers. I had made my life (even) more complicated than necessary by taking nothing granted - not even that clue numbers would be in the conventional order (well, they're not all in the conventional position or orientation, are they?). My way in was to take a guess at the position of 3ac, and to see where that led. Fortunately, the eight and nine letter lights rapidly fell into place and the rest was "a matter of technique".

I'm unconvinced by some of the cluing, e.g. 35dn...

[BananaBoat]

I'm interested, Speravi - where's your problem with 35dn? I thought it was pretty sound and neatly worded (although I suppose there's a possibly redundant, though accurate word there...)

[turnerjmw]

Many thanks indeed, Mysterons and robinruth. I was failing to see the wood for the trees. After your nudge everything has fallen into place, and it's now complete. I don't get the wordplay to 19d, but I can't see more than one thing it can be.

[Speravi]

BananaBoat: there's a singular noun in the definition that I thought should be plural - now I'm not so sure... I was too hasty in posting that comment and withdraw it with an apology to Waterloo.

[cruciverbali]

Orange-brown colour = tenn� (heraldry)

[turnerjmw]

Cheers, cruciverbali. Dunce's cap well and truly on

[jamesah]

Quite tough and this involved lots of rubbing out! I don't quite get the wordplay to 22ac- I can see the wordplay to the first five letters but not the final letter. Any suggestions?

[turnerjmw]

I wondered if it was an error, based on a more common (but incorrect) spelling of the fascist leader

[cluelessJoe]

Hmm, took a while this one - after a slow start, got there yesterday eventually. The impetus finally came when I got 1ac - a bit like the struggle to find 1dn in Mazy before the floodgates opened.
Still very difficult to complete - not the grid filling but the aftermath - trying to ensure all bars are in place, and trying to make numbers legible in squares already occupied by answers and thick lines. Hope John Green is feeling generous, as I'm having trouble recognising some of my own writing!
More excessive over-unching? The editors seem to be allowing a lot of poetic licence these days!

[perseverer]

By my reckoning, once you allow for its rather unusual feature, this puzzle has 28 unches, out of 144 cells, which doesn't seem excessive, for example compared with the recent Raj.

(Assuming I've got all the bars in correctly!)