Listener Crossword 4031 - Much Ado About Nothing by Shackleton

[Walterloo]

Hope nobody minds me starting this week's thread. Lengthy preambles aside I've made ok progress with this so far but still a lot to do. Some good clueing and the whole thing looks extremely interesting. Get your paintboxes ready. Good luck everybody.

[Cruncher]

Finally limped over the finishing line. An intricate piece!

One small query - if the resultant work is a forgery then presumably it's not by the named artist. If so what name are we supposed to give? Is this all too obvious and have I missed yet another strand of this puzzle?

[Philoctetes]

I think that is a tad too subtle - mind fatigue perhaps? If you were selling a forgery, it would still bear the name of the artist who didn't paint it

[Mr Crossy]

I think I�m in the same boat as cluelessJoe, in that I�m not entirely happy with the resolution of the ambiguity. Placement one way seems to offer nothing at all, while placement the other way does reveal the extra fragment, but in a position and orientation, relative to its related items, that is almost arbitrary. Also it seems to be �in abbreviated form� rather as �relative information� than as �missing material�.

Perhaps I�m being too picky. I think I�m confident enough to submit my entry, but I am left with a niggling concern that the true significance of �another interpretation of the grid� has escaped me. If so, more fool me, and one up to the compiler. In any event, I agree this puzzle is quite a work of art.

[robinruth]

Mr Crossy, I believe that thinking about it in a different - (geographical) way - not 'quite a work of art' at all, will resolve your doubts satisfactorily. It did mine. But perhaps you have done that bit of geographical research and still remain unconvinced.
Shelouse, I struggled with gaps in the across clue misprints for ages but finally saw large parts of a couple of words that seemed to tie in with a large part of the unclued light - followed that hunch and found two paintings and a convincing forgery. Brilliant that you have completed the rest this year - we haven't even managed winter or spring!

[Mr Crossy]

Thanks robinruth � yes, I think I understand the geographical angle as alluded to in "relative information". I just don't see that either placement of the ambiguous entries adds anything much, at least not very precisely.

[Mysterons]

Mr Crossy - you have certainly chosen the correct option, so can be confident in your submission. However, the appearance of that (digraph) fragment is not nearly as significant as the situation within the grid of the answer to the 5th across clue (see above postings).

[shelouse]

thanks all for help and encouragement. A whole series of PDMs last night and now have the artist, the real paintings, three quarters of the grid and steady progress. I suppose it is just a delightful coincidence that the artist's name has recently been the subject of much (ribald) news. A bit stuck on the charade, but expect it will come soon.

[JackDeCrow]

Having joined Walterloo as a convert to the Times Crossword Club, I had been forgetting to look at the past solutions in all the Friday evening excitement. How nice to see the golfing one again and the confirmation that the ball was supposed to move to the hole. And how extraordinary to see that one David J Carpenter was the winner twice in 6 weeks! Does he have extra conspicuous envelopes or what?

[Clamzy]

Jack I don't recall a year in a decade or more when there were not multiple prize winners. They are of course vastly outnumbered by such as yours truly with a grand total of none:-)

[Mr Crossy]

Mysterons, many thanks for the confidence-boost. I'm *stlil* not quite there with the significance of the placement, being able to see only a neck-of-the-woods relevance, but I'll let it go now, and look forward to the annotated solution.

[starwalker]

Being on holiday with no access to reference materials, I made only slow progress on this until I got back. Since then, everything has slowly but surely fallen into place. I too am not particularly happy about the ambiguity, but I see what was intended. On with the colouring !

[rabet]

I have all the answers, name of forgery etc., but the words "alternative interpretation" puzzle me. Alternative to what? What is the original interpretation?

[Mysterons]

Jack - only correct solutions are entered into the weekly draw, so envelopes have already been discarded by then. Mr. C is indeed fortunate to have been outright winner twice in 4 weeks, but then perhaps this was also twice in 10 years ?

(For all other crossword competitions I always use an A4 envelope !)

Mr Crossy - given that the 2 options for placing '5 across' are NW and SW, the correct selection can be in no doubt.

In actual fact, Shackleton has done a pretty good job cartographically. Within the actual region, using the SW corner as a point of reference, the place in question is 88% North and 28.5% East. Within the crossword grid these lines of latitude and longitude fall in the NW corner of the most northerly green cell, so pretty close to the 'centre' of the light in question. The entire region itself has sides in the ratio 7:9, so the 11:15 grid is only a fraction too short.
All in all, a very clever construction !

Rabet - the solver's task is to paint a forgery - this is the interpretation to be submitted (see above for the 'alternative')

[jabone]

Thanks guys and gal(s), your success has given me the confidence to stick with this. Had my first pdm (and that abbreviation took a bit of working out , not in Chambers and am probably the wrong generation) this evening. So at last have painter and titles but still, obviously, some way to go. But where is Cruciverbalist? I hope he is ok -I could have missed some earlier posts.

[JackDeCrow]

Thanks Mysterons. I was being a bit flippant about the envelopes - but perhaps he sticks his entries on to card?!

[Deviant]

Thanks RobinRuth - I understand now. That's the first in 3 weeks I've finished - after two puzzles 98% completed, it is nice :)

[shelouse]

Thanks all, especially Mysterons. I read all posts again and went out to get some asparagus. Half way there one halfpenny dropped and the final one on the way home. e. Now for the actual paintwork!

[Mysterons]

Thanks shelouse, asparagus usually does the trick for me too.

Regarding the actual paintwork, in response to the question, "How do you know when you're finished?" P replied, "How do you know when you're finished making love?"

(......... you count to 77 ?)