Listener 4067

[Clamzy]

Welcome to a new Listener year with Be My Guest by MR E for starters.

[Monkmonk]

A gentle start from Mr E. but rather unfair if your name is not Mr E but Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff.

[midazolam]

true monkmonk. nice gentle start to 2010 (a lot easier than last year's golf related theme). happy new year to all

[AHearer]

Yes, a very friendly start to the year. Best wishes to all of you.

[starwalker]

A simple and straightforward start to the year. I wonder how long that will last ? Let us hope that this year we can keep any hints to a more subtle level.

[daagg]

Finished already - though mostly because I can now start on Friday! Still some wordplay I don't get, but I'm scratching my head. Happy new year everyone.

[cluelessJoe]

Happy New Year to all.
Yes, a gentle start but not without it's ambiguity - are there not two ways to XBY (four actually, but two principle ways) ... presumably both are acceptable?

[daagg]

There are infinitely many ways, but I would say that one is by far the most appropriate.

[AHearer]

In principle yes, cluelessjoe, but I feel if one emulates the grid entries one cannot be wrong. Should I be having premonitions of a discussion along the lines of the golf shot alluded to by midazolam? Answers on one side of the paper only, please.

[midazolam]

i cant see why you are saying that there is an ambiguity. I first had X and Y the wrong way round and did not see what was going on as it made no sense. then i swapped them around and it makes perfect sense. the preamble explains the meaning of abcdefghi so they can't be in any other order either

[cluelessJoe]

No Midazolam, the ambiguity is not over the use of X or Y, it's over the (many) options for how to XBY.
Daag hits the nail square on the head in that there are infinite possibilities - I deliberately reduced this to two in my post as I don't think the rest would be considered within the context of a crossword. I favour the one which reflects the techniques used in the puzzle - but surely the other way can't be faulted if anyone goes for it?

[daagg]

Anyone hoping for an all-clear year would be brave indeed if they did anything other than the obvious on Week 1 - living on the edge!

[midazolam]

apologies cluelessjoe, i see where you are coming from. I opted for the commonality from the rest of the grid, but then i think any such way would be harsh to mark wrong.

[cluelessJoe]

.... well, however others approach it, I guess there is always the precedent of the recent church / campanile / bell tower and Samuel's 'cause of much pain' to encompass all other possible answers as correct ones. Can't say that I agreed with those decisions, but I think that this time around, anything goes.

[Ruthrobin]

I didn't find this so 'gentle'. I though much of the wordplay was tough to decipher. However, if my name were Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff, I imagine I would have become accustomed to writing it Monkmonk :). I believe I can see some ambiguity concerning the second part of the X answer. Does that refer to the entirety or just the part relevant to the theme?

[midazolam]

the preamble states that it is just the square in the top left hand corner that needs to XY etc. do exactly what it says on the tin robinruth. just how you do it can be different, but given what we have already done in the rest of the grid, I would go with that

[Apache4D]

Happy New Year to All. Some may remember me from last year, 2009 was my first year of tackling The Listener and I have to say found it extremely addictive and enjoyable. I managed to make it through to "Much Ado About Nothing" (Wyoming, ColorADO etc) with 100% correct. However after an extremely lengthy golf round and the aforementioned painting class the crosswords were consuming far too much of my time. Due to a few personal complications I had to let the obsession go for a while!! It's hard to tell if the crossword was the cause of the issues, or just a well needed escape from them!

Anyway, starting afresh for the new year, 4067 is the first Listener I have tackled since breaking out my red, blue and green felt-tips.....I have to say that I am struggling somewhat, but am hoping this is just down to lack of practice (currently have just 13A,31A,3D, and 12D).

Congrats to all solvers and here's looking forward to another engaging year of Listener's and hopefully I'll make it through this time haha!

[Ruthrobin]

Thanks, Midazolam - I had decided that was what was required. A very happy new year to you and all.

[Speravi]

Like Ruthrobin, I didn't find this all that easy, but after the last couple of weeks almost anything would come as a relief. Once again, however, there's evidence of poor proof-reading: firstly, in the preamble, it should be '...some cells', rather than '...some cell', and, secondly, the wrong form of the verb has been used in the wordplay for 31ac, hasn't it? (Not that these minor errors spoiled my enjoyment of the puzzle.)

[Cruncher]

Took me longer to persuade the TImes site to let me have access on Friday night than finish the crossword - so indeed a gentle start. Can't see my way through the wordplay for a couple of the answers yet but otherwise all is good.

[Ruthrobin]

Yes, Cruncher, if you look at the 'other' message board, you will see that you were not alone. I thumped the computer furiously for a good hour before I got access to the Times site - and Yes, Speravi, one of those errors was an obvious typo but the other really held me up, as it didn't obey Don Manley's or Ximenes' rules about crossword grammar.