Listener 4102 Something's Brewing by Poat

[dr b]

Do I get to call firsties this week? I thought this was a nice puzzle. It was a lot easier to get the keyword than I thought it might be, and once you have that everything falls into place pretty quickly. I felt that a bit more could have been said about the removed letters in the down clues.

[Zabadak]

Well I was watching the footie wasn't I!I liked this one a lot, because it's pretty tightly organised thematically. Looking up the keyword on Google led to some rather surprising results, and for once wasn't particularly helpful. You may be right about the down clue letters, but you clearly have to do something, and we've been complaining a bit recently about excessively long preambles. Nice to sweat a bit on the dénouement! Cheers and thanks to Poat.

[AHearer]

A good puzzle, and it was interesting to read the story again. I saw what the removed letters in the down clues were doing fairly soon, but it didn't help much, especially as I wasn't sure what the last four were going to be. The bottom right-hand corner was the last to yield for me. What you said about looking up the keyword in Google, Zabadak, reminded me of looking for help on typesetting in LaTeX -- what insights that gives into people's private lives!

[dr b]

Fortunately, I had something in my memory banks about the keyword and the thematic words, so I Googled the keyword along with some other potentially relevant words, which directed me towards the story and away from Z's "surprising results". I also finished the lower right last. I particularly liked 22a and 35a.

[contendo]

This is one of those where I sit and stare at the clues for half an hour and nothing happens - nothing brewing in fact.

[Zabadak]

Contendo - I got my start in the bottom left. But for sure, the clues are not gimmes this week

[contendo]

Zabadak - Yes, I've made a bit of progress bottom left, but it's slow going.

[midazolam]

I am ashamed to omit that I found the endgame of this tough, although in hindsight it should not have held me up like it did.

With the grid filled I was staring at both the blanks in the keyword and letter latent choices without a clue. I have learnt something new this week now having read the story.

Regarding the clues, these were on the tougher side, well written and flowed nicely. I liked the reading of 8 down and there were also a few &lits. Following on from Poat's "Rules of construction", this setter is one that I will look out for again.

[trux]

Making quite good progress, but clues are tough (yet so far fair when PDM arrives) ... pretty sure I have the keyword, which is helping fill in some letters, - bottom LH corner all complete, but top LH and bottom RH still worryingly empty ... and 23A causing me distress (is last word of grid entry also in clue ? Surely not....) ... Ho hum, still got time on my side to creep-crawl along...

[perseverer]

As dr b said, it all fits together very neatly in the end. The theme was totally unfamiliar to me, but (the often maligned) Wikipedia explained it all.

[midazolam]

omit or admit!!!

[trux]

All fitting into place - keyword, letters latent, connection all resolved ; like many others, it seems, the bottom RH corner is the trickiest .... it's the only bit left not toally filled but the puzzle is conquered nonetheless, can sleep happy again !

[qwerty99]

Got there in the end, but it took me all day. I didn't properly work out the wordplay for 5 ac and 23 ac until after I'd finished the puzzle. Regarding the keyword - most of my reference books are in packing cases upstairs, so I can't check, but how easy would it be to verify the keyword without recourse to the internet? The Listener claims that puzzles should be solvable without electronic aids; I'd be interested to know if anyone has solved this without a search-engine.

PS googling the keyword - I haven't, but I can imagine the results!

[trux]

Like you, Qwerty99, have just finished it - and it is indeed satsifying to go to bed on Saturday night with it in the envelope already. I did get the keyword without internet - a glimmer of word association from my prep school days, I think - which then led me quickly to the letters latent (I confess I did - afterwards - refresh my historical souvenirs on the 'Net, but only out of interest rather than necessity). Good puzzle - with well-formulated clues, hard vocab, and very good thread through title, thematics, keyword & letters latent.

[silversolver]

I found this one tough going with some very difficult wordplays that, even now that I have finally finished, I am not entirely sure about. Very enjoyable puzzle. I got the keyword from working backwards from the cipher and then found the historical connection.

[cluelessJoe]

Wow, smart work dr b. It took me ages to get started but a decent dose of bad weather this morning gave me the opportunity finally to rattle through it. Like others, I spotted where the missing letters were going, and managed to work back toward the keyword from cipher letters already in the grid.
Time to unpack those cases qwerty99? I didn't need to run any search - I half remembered seeing this mentioned in Simon Singh's 'the Code Book', so that was my only port of call just to confirm that the keyword made some kind of thematic sense.
A well-linked theme, and some wickedly challenging clues. Thanks Poat

[daagg]

I knew the story quite well because my son used to do the National Cipher Challenge, which was all about this sort of code. If anyone has mathematically-inclined teenage children, I would strongly recommend it. It normally starts about now and runs until after Christmas.

[starwalker]

Quite late starting this and initially found it something of a struggle, particularly the lower right corner. Not something that I was overly familiar with, so I have now gained some overdue education. On the whole, very enjoyable and much tougher than previous Poat offerings.

[pcrabtree]

Is 18D actually in Chambers? I can't find it ...

[Eril]

It is - but you need to look under the second word.
Anyone found any thematic 'easter eggs'? The bottom line gives up a key character but with some letters left over.

[AndrewG-S]

Just got there on this one, tougher than recent offerings, but very enjoyable. Some of the cluing was excellent, I particularly liked 5dn and 20dn (not necessarily the most challenging but great surface reading). Many thanks Poat