Listener 4086: Back Gate by Tiburon

[midazolam]

My first listener from one of the Magpie team (talk about coincidences from last weeks magpie pitch).

Obvious misprints made this fairly straightforward to start but tricky to finish. The theme however was right up my street so the PDM finally dawned and then I very much enjoyed piecing it together.

A diagonal red herring having completed the top right hand corner first led me to think of the wrong 4!

Many thanks Tiburon

[email protected]

[midazolam]

speravi - as dr b said it is mutual to the grid. the grid's 180 degree symmetry has not set line. if the grid is turned around the lines are the same.

easylistener i have sent you an email rather than explaining the four clues here as it is difficult without giving them away

cd-rom - if you want your solving speed to decrease then it is a must. some would class it as cheating, but then some say this site is cheating....

[jabone]

Zabadak - thanks for pointing out the Lame; now I might understand the clue!

[jacinth]

An excellent puzzle - covered all bases for me, as it were. I was a little held up in the name-finding as my grid fill was as error-strewn as the theme tends to be! The symmetry comment was a bit unhelpful - as people have said 'rotational' would have been a better choice than 'mutual'. Thanks, Tiburon.

[silversolver]

Thanks Zabadak. I think I might invest in that CD-ROM as it sounds as if it might give me a few more hours of my life back every week! I did invest in a new printed 2008 Chambers a few weeks ago to replace my dog-eared and battered 2003 version - I have to say it has made things easier as there seem to be a surprising number of answers and wordplay references that do not appear in the earlier edition.

[qwerty99]

Thanks for the Top Tip, Zabadak. For 45 pence it's a no-brainer.

Why would using the Chambers CD-ROM be construed as cheating if using the paper version isn't? Does it do something that the paper version doesn't?

By the way, when I ordered mine from Amazon last evening, there were only four left!

[easylistener]

oh no - only 4 left? Hope they restock in time for my June birthday!

[Zabadak]

Peter Biddlecombe's review of the CD ROM on Amazon shows that it's a favourite tool of Listener setters and solvers alike. Is it cheating? Is looking stuff up on the web cheating? If I could do a Listener without aids I would - I certainly get a kick from doing the Times without references, and on those occasions where I've only had the paper version of Chambers to work with, I've felt an extra sense of achievement completing a Listener. I get dead chuffed if I can do a Mephisto without aids (though I defy anyone to do this week's - more than half the entries go down in my book as "very obscure" and the wordplay doesn't help much). For me, Listener is not a race: time is less important than the journey, but the availability of a searchable dictionary mostly enhances the experience and cuts out some serious frustration. You've still got to work out what search terms to use, and if the grid entries aren't real words then you're back on the little grey cells.
I've also found that setters often don't give a straight Chambers connection, but one that is two or more steps removed: they're on to us, you know, and don't like to make it TOO easy!

[midazolam]

Zabadak, my comment was not against using the cd-rom version, which I do use, nor the what is or is not cheating. it was merely a dig at a previous heated discussion here started by the listener die-hards (who may or may not use the cd-rom). they are against this site discussing the listener crossword in any shape or form before the printed solution. I bet some of them use the cd rom and so it is no more "cheating" than discussing threads and giving out hints as a little community discussion board. Anyway I better shut up before I reignite the war.

qwerty99, the cd-rom has a searchable facility so if the clue was "trite" then it will take you to all the words that have the defintion "trite" e.g. predictable, well-worn or even Mickey Mouse! Not all words in the clues are directly linked like this as Zabadak says, which I do think is a good thing.

[Zabadak]

Midazolam - I'm with you 100%. I'm not interested in being amongst an elite: I'd like the Listener family to be as big as possible, and I think this community is a great facilitator in that respect. I wouldn't want the answers to be listed here (as they are for most other puzzles, including prize ones) but I think the mutual support and the hints and nudges only add to the fun. Keep up the good work!

[cluelessJoe]

Agreed Midazolam - and as for the CD, I think it may have been mentioned here before that the Listener stats' current top solver (last failure Listener #3787) has quite openly admitted - on another board - to using the CD ROM. In fact it was his post which alerted me to its existence, and which has saved me countless hours of slog since. As Zabadak says above, it can indeed enhance the experience and eliminate some serious frustration - cheating no, corner cutting yes indeed but what's so wrong with that?

[qwerty99]

Blimey, I think someone opened Pandora's box. I hope it wasn't me! So, the CD-ROM has a searchable facility.Can't wait for my shiny new disc to arrive so I can start cheating.
Did anyone else notice the comedy cock-up in the preamble to today's EV? In a more difficult puzzle, it may well have misled the solver, and that really would have been cheating!

[Speravi]

On symmetry: rotation is different from reflection. Rotational symmetry takes place about a point, whereas the mention in the rubric of 180-degree symmetry can only be interpreted, IMHO, as specification of an axis of symmetry for reflection. The curves in my grid don't have reflective symmetry, hence my earlier comment.

[daagg]

Speravi, I beg to differ. The term "90 degree symmetry" is always used to mean fourfold rotational symmetry, so - to me at least - "180 degree symmetry" is perfectly allowed to mean twofold rotational symmetry. I don't have a problem with it also meaning reflectional symmetry, but that does seem a bit less natural. Again, for me, the term "mutual" meant that the two curves map onto each other - although by that point I was already looking for the characteristic shape(s) to which the theme was blaringly pointing.

[AndrewG-S]

A bit slow on the uptake this week with plenty of exciting cricket to watch. I now have the grid filled bar 2 clues and a jumble of letters from the misprints - waiting for the PDM. After the exchange above I am starting to think I need to buy a PC...and pondering whether it is better/worse to have two South Africans in a cricket team or use a CD-ROM for the Listener.

[Archie1962]

I enjoyed 19d. Having seen what the answer must be it took me ages to see where the misprint was. If I'd seen it quicker it probably wouldn't have been so entertaining.

There are also two possible misprints in 36D, only resolved when you know the theme. Anyone else start out with the wrong one?

[JackDeCrow]

Yes, also had fun and games with those two. Indeed, for a long time assumed I was looking for a Colombian dish! By the time I got the answer, I also had the thematic words, so was puzzled for a while by what I thought was the "obvious" replacement. However, the very last one for me in terms of understanding the wordplay was 21a.

[cluelessJoe]

I think it's may be more than two AndrewG-S ... without looking much further, aren't the top three in our batting line-up South African?

[bobbycollins]

me, Archie1962

Only resolved by needing a different incorrect letter to complete the thematic word. Did you have the first letter incorrect initially?

[Ruthrobin]

Yes, 21a was very amusing and 22d was dazzlingly clever, i thought.

[perseverer]

Most amusing thing about 21a is confusing that publication with a newspaper!