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]

[dr b]

Hi midazolam. I have about half the grid filled; so far it seems fine, but the mixing of the misprints and corrections has me wondering about the finish.

I didn't get to this till late as I got back from some minor surgery this afternoon (8 pm your time, I think); such is my dedication that after attending to my email I plunged right in. Unfortunately I am prohibited from lifting more than 10 pounds, and I printed the puzzle out on 20-lb. paper. What to do?

[cluelessJoe]

dr b - if my math(s) is correct, then take the half you have filled and place it to one side. That leaves you just the other half to handle, and half of 20-lb is the 10 pounds you are allowed to lift.
When it comes to piecing the two halves together at the end ... well that's another issue - maybe time to get a friend to help (but don't tell the chaps on the Crossword Centre Board).
Wishing you a speedy recovery, cheers

[dr b]

finito; not the best idea to do this while watching game 7 of a hockey playoff series! Nice to see all 4 names in the grid as two are so often forgotten. Nice puzzle.

[dr b]

Joe: solution was to have someone else lift the paper - my plan for everything for the next month! Also, nice avatar.

[Zabadak]

Also came to this late and knackered after completing number 1 son's move to new flat - too many stairs! Didn't try looking for the theme and words until virtually all done, as I thought there'd be more of a mix. A few wrong interpretations and badly written letters confused things a bit (memo to self, write more clearly!). Dr B: I bow to your superior knowledge: I knew of one of the neglected pair, and as often happens with this thing, my education continues. A double eureka moment, theirs and now our rather more trivial one, but very satisfying nonetheless. Loved the title link.

[AHearer]

Like you, Zabadak, I'd forgotten about the fourth. I went so far as to pull the lead player's account off the shelf, and the fourth is certainly in there. A nicely constructed puzzle.

[daagg]

A lovely puzzle, with a good variation in the word search. Having found the most obvious two names, I was expecting the other two to be more closely related to them, but I was familiar enough with the story to know what to look for.

I thought 42ac was a brilliant clue - albeit somewhat scary.

[Zabadak]

daagg: certainly agree on 42, as it would stand on straight definition. I struggled initially because my printer made it look like Lame lake - does anyone else have this kind of issue when printing form the Club?

[starwalker]

Grid fill went fairly smoothly but I was getting nowhere with the misprints until I read the preamble more carefully and then it all made sense. Still have a couple of answers where I am not absolutely sure of how I got there so I will put it to one side for the moment, as they involve unchecked letters.

[daagg]

Zab, my printing problems normally involve losing descenders, so 'y' comes out as 'v'. This meant I was very suspicious of the last word in the clue for 6dn - not that yoddy is a word, but I've never come across voddy either.

[easylistener]

Grid filled (nearly) but can't make sense of the misprints and corrections. Keep reading the preamble but completely flummoxed. Help!

[easylistener]

Also, what electronic gadget do people recommend. I have a birthday coming up and may request one. I have at the moment a SEIKO Oxford concise thesaurus which is quite good but some of you were talking about FRANKLIN. Which one? And are they really any better than Quinapalus etc?

[dr b]

easylistener, if you read through the "corrected" letters in clue order, the 4 thematic words should be fairly apparent. Everything else falls into place from there.

[qwerty99]

Easylistener, I found in helped to write the misprints and corrections in two lines. Nothing was jumping out at me as I looked at them in columns, but once I put them into lines the penny dropped immediately.

Now I am just worrying about drawing the two smooth curves. I hate putting curved lines into a crossword grid; I'm never sure whether they are too curved or not curvy enough.

[bobbycollins]

Finished off watching the Cup Final. I know nothing of the theme so am hoping that Wiki will help with the names. Not bothered about curvy symmetry since I don't submit.

Some tricky clues, and the misprints/corrections helped hugely in getting the last half dozen or so.

I too like the avatar, cluelessJoe. I have always loved the "PAWKING METAWS". Can't believe it's forty five years ago.

[Ruthrobin]

Qwerty99, I am sure that you will be fine if your curves go through the correct letters - they more or less draw themselves in an appropriate way.
Easylistener, for me the best gadget is the Chambers dictionary on-line. The previous edition (not the 11th) is still available through Amazon for £20 or so.
I don't see what was so brilliant about 42ac. I must be missing something.

[dr b]

"Twenty years of schoolin' and they put you on the day shift" still hits me as one of the bleakest lines of poetry ever penned.

[dr b]

Obviously commenting^ on bobbyc re: Joe's avatar^^^ and not Robinruth^^. I must also be missing something about 42a.

[Zabadak]

Tricky to comment on 42 as we're still live, but the answer is one of the great ecological disasters of our time: check out the Wiki entry. I liked the way the corrected clue worked as a pretty good straight definition, but with precise wordplay that barely broke the surface.

[daagg]

Zab has explained 42ac perfectly. Brilliant as a crossword clue, a disaster in real life.