Listener 4107 - European Revolutions by Spud

[daagg]

A lovely ending! The "19 letters" is quite funny.

[trux]

RR - many thanks for your offer of help but have resigned myself to waiting until my return to Geneva on Sunday (when I will get double dose) and have wiled away the hours by printing off old EVs (strangely I can get into Clued Up but not Times - both with same passwords !) .... might have to do some real work instead ....

[borealis]

For anyone having problems with highlighting - it is possible to use the downloaded grid, make it transparent, and pre-highlight any cells you want in any colour your computer will print. Then you can lighten any shade you want so that you can fill them in with readable letters! My quicker alternative was to shade the outside of the cells leaving letters visible in the middle.

[contendo]

Thank you RR for your encouragement. I have now corrected the two errors I made in the across correct letters so that the instruction now makes sense. That has led me to a related section of the grid, making a third thematic element, but I'm damned if I can see what I'm supposed to do with it, or how whatever I do with it can amend 19 cells. I think it's time for a cup of coffee.

[Clamzy]

Contendo - What to do with it? If you have the extra letters from the scrambled group of clues they give a well known puzzle. This crossword is solved in the same way as that puzzle. If you need more [email protected]

[AndrewG-S]

S-matrix, good to hear from you and great that my Wednesday suggestion is being acted on. Blending was my approach too, which I felt somewhat smug about.

[Speravi]

By Friday evening I had a completed grid, the puzzle to be solved from the unscrambled clues, the single unchanged element, and the instruction; since then I've been looking at it. I've constructed an artefact from 54 cells and assumed that the 19 cells to be amended are within the 54 but can see no further. Indeed, apart from the unchanged element and the element relating to the instruction I can see only one other candidate element (with another two slightly different, in both senses, variations). For me, Listener 4106 was a doddle compared to this!

[mullingar]

Hello Peeps, I believe I've excelled myself here. I have completed the grid with only one query about 30 down (How does the solution mean the last word?). I've found the instruction, the unaffected element and the puzzle to be solved and I haven't got a clue what to do next. I see from the hints that crayons might be helpful and six elements seem to suggest a way forward but only very dimly. The unaffected element looks like a complete wild card to me.So close and yet so far...Anybody who can offer consolation or gentle guidance would be most welcome

[daagg]

mullingar & speravi, the across clues' instruction should lead you to another element. If you find it and compare it with the unaffected element, you should be led to an interpretation of the instruction.

[contendo]

Mullingar - If you look up the root word of your answer to 30d in the BRB you will find a definition which fits a meaning of the last word in the clue.
As for me, I've decided to call it a day. The geometry has defeated me.

[mullingar]

Contendo, What is the BRB?. I suspect the geometry will defeat me too but I'd like to know if the six elements are what I think they might be and then how I might possibly find them in the grid.

[mullingar]

Contendo I see it now in Chambers but I'd still like to know about BRB

[Scorpius]

Since John Green generally accepts late entries for the purpose of the statistics from solvers who have been away (if they have advised him in advance), I find something as explicit about last week's puzzle as appears on this page completely inappropriate. Listener 4106 is still a live puzzle, and remains so until the publication of the solution.

[mullingar]

Oh dear I hope I'm not the tansgressor. I never enter but wouldn't like to break conventions on here

[contendo]

Mullingar - Fear not! It's not you. BRB = big red book, ie Chambers.

[perseverer]

Mullingar - you are in the clear, and the BRB is the Big Red Book - an apt description of the print edition Chambers! The perceived transgressor was the one criticising somebody else and may have felt he wasn't adding anything new.

[mullingar]

phew

[Speravi]

Daag, thank you for your posting, but I'm no further forward, due, I suspect to a blind spot with this particular puzzle: I have, I think, the second element from the across clues, and I can see it, en clair, by tilting my head, but the nature of the comparison to which you refer eludes me still. Below that element I can see another if there is a translation of a sub-element, but the rule for identifying what happens to the displaced sub-element is not apparent (to me). The general acclaim that has met this puzzle makes me think that I am still some way off the PDM (I say that in the hope that the Law of Cruciverbalism will kick in: namely, that a cri de coeur decrying the hopelessness of one's position is met with enlightenment soon after the send button is engaged. Some hope).

[BlackHugh]

speravi - as you have from the scrambled clues the puzzle to be solved - you could consider how you might form the appropriate object from the grid (and there is more than one way) - then apply the action

PS - only got it myself this morning

[Speravi]

Thank you, BlackHugh. I said earlier that I had constructed an 'artefact' relating to the scrambled clues items, but I had made an assumption about the 54 cells needed to construct the said artefact. As you say, (and this is what I had overlooked) there is more than one way to construct such an object, and I deduce that I have been looking at the wrong set of cells. However, with the exceptions of the unchanged element, the element linked to the instruction, and a possible Moroccan the other elements remain elusive.