Listener Crossword 4079

[starwalker]

This week's offering is Sine Qua Non by Shackleton.
No one should panic that I have finished it already - I've only just read the preamble and feel the need for a lie down in a darkened room.
No doubt it will all make sense in the end. I have always found Shackleton to be sometimes tough, but always fair. Let's hope that this does not prove me wrong.

[Mysterons]

It is the 4 components taken as a unit that are defined by the 5-letter word tristram. The word is in plain view, with bars separating each letter.

[tristram37]

Thanks, Mysterons. There's none so blind.....! But it was a new word to me. Now for the final step all I have to do is work out how one can modify something one's already been told to highlight. It makes no sense! Or does it? And all I can think of is extraordinary rendition, which certainly can't be right.

[Zabadak]

Try singing your newly created line.

[Clamzy]

La,la,la,etc., but I sympathise with tristram37. For people who work directly on their entry copy this final change will be messy to say the least. I wonder why the highlighting intruction was given early in the preamble when subsequent change was required?
Fortunately for me I use a working copy and then transcribe - whooops:-)

[Zabadak]

Agreed, though this one needs to be done in pencil first (if using the original only) not least becasue you're expecting a change to at least one entry.Perhaps the instructions should have left the highlighting to the very end to avoid a certain ambiguity.
I recall a Listener of bygone years which required you to "erase everything". I submited a blank piece of paper with a note suggesting it might be the only fully correct solution.

[jacinth]

My, what a puzzle! I've just got the last PDM and key modification. I'm pretty happy with the new representation of the element (I was suspicious of goings-on in that area already). However, I don't understand how the action of the second message did this, which is a bit frustrating after all the graft - a very gentle nudge would be appreciated.

[Mysterons]

When interpreting the second message, you need to consider the puzzle's lines of symmetry jacinth.

[jacinth]

Got it! I was complicating things as usual. Thanks very much, Mysterons.

Thanks to Shackleton for a quite amazing puzzle.

[tristram37]

I must be being extraordinarily thick on a Monday morning, Zabadak. Sing the newly created line? Well I do sing in a choir, but I'm used to seeing crotchets and minims etc, or even A.B,C,D,E,F,G, but not what appears to be a random collection of letters from throughout the alphabet. Actually I work in pencil on a photocopy of the puzzle as published in The Times, arranged on a landscape sheet of A4, and am used to multi-erasings. I take the point about the preamble's highlighting instructions, but am still up the proverbial gum tree. Surely the key information cannot be changed as it's part of the framework of the puzzle?

[daagg]

Tristram, it may be that we don't understand where you are stuck. If you are on the very last step, then you should know where the "key information" is displayed. Having followed the second instruction, you should have found a new thematic "message" in the grid. You need to modify the "key information" to be consistent with this new message. Z's suggestion is correct - you need to sing (or at least say rhythmically to start with) the message.

[tristram37]

Ah, I see! I was trying to make sense of the other line. Many thanks for helpful hints which I don't think gave much away to the uninitiated. But I suspect there will be many who can't see the connection.

[starwalker]

Having completed the grid on Saturday, I was "obliged" to set it aside for family gatherings and have only got back to it today.
After a series of pdm's (not necessarily in the correct sequence), I am at the very final step where the key information must be modified to provide "consistent rendition", whatever that means. This not being one of my areas of expertise, I shall ponder at little longer. One modification immediately offers itself, but it would be a shame to ruin an entry when speed is unnecessary.
As I said earlier, "tough but always fair". An early contender for puzzle of the year ?

[Ruthrobin]

Starwalker, consult the Internet for key information about what you have finally 'come up with'. I think the necessary modification will become evident and delight you. Yes, it is awesome!

[dr b]

Like Starwalker I was finally able to get back to this today. I have my full grid from Friday, and am now happy with the instructions from the misprints in the across & down clues. Still nothing strikes me as to the 2 different versions of the question that must be deduced from the "non-misprint" down clues. Harumph.

Having cheated and read all the above discussion, I think I have the 4 elements and the 5-letter definition but I sense that getting the 2 versions is necessary to proceed further. I shall continue to ponder as time allows.

[Ruthrobin]

Dr B,
Apply what the misprints suggested to those non-misprint clues. They told you to do something. If you do it, you'll come up with interesting words that you can look up in Google, or whatever.

[cruciverbali]

Sounds like you are nearly there starwalker, and you have plenty of time for further endeavour, so no need to dash to the postbox yet.

[midazolam]

Not a crossword that one can look at in dribs and drabs with little time, but after my wife gave birth to our second son at the end of last week, that is exactly what I have been faced with.

Despite this, I agree that this is a cluing extravaganza. To top it off the grid is a pangram as well. Tops the year so far I think (although my brain is rather sleep deprived at the moment and I can't quite remember what we have had so far!).

[kayakamina]

Congratulations midazolam

[Patch49]

Is there an on-line dictionary for translating Edmund's words to normal English and vice versa? I'm having trouble with 23ac

[cruciverbali]

Not to my knowledge - though this work in progress may be one to bookmark for the future, it doesn't yet contain the word in question:

http://www.english.ca...azard/extra/language/

PS That's great news midazolam - hope you get some sleep soon !