Listener 4126 Arthurian Legend by Corvettes

[dr b]

Wow. Absolutely brilliant. I tried to rotate the rings mentally, but got out the scissors after a few minutes. Then half my letters were upside down, so I printed out a new grid and re-filled it. An incredible feat of construction, I thought. Difficult but lots of fun.

[fyellin]

Yeah, I was disappointed that 30D wasn't listed in Chambers. Fortunately, it was a word I knew because of some specialized education.

Overall, a beautifully constructed puzzle.

[JackDeCrow]

Is it not quite hard to read the final quotation if you take the scissors approach? Having said that, with the right letters highlighted, I imagine it woud be OK.

[logophile]

Of course a lot of solvers use the grid printed in the Saturday Times and so don't have the option of printing off another one. As there wasn't the customary warning to use pencil initially, scissors and tape/glue will be unavoidable for many (I've tried it with my copy and it worked very well) - presumably the vetters were happy with the wording of the preamble !!

[bellabee]

i rely on the newsprint version, and it is very difficult to cut accurately- i would visit the library in the past and photocopy the grid when the preamble suggested a blade might be required - even now i will only slice up the flimsy 'master' as a last resort [the recent 'penny drop moment' was delivered intact with a carved up photocopy attached] - i now get 'in-house' photocopies on request [grudgingly] - and i took the precaution of getting a couple for this brilliant crossword, solved it on one of them, transferred the realigned lettters to the 'master' and then chopped up the copy for the fun of it - the latter version did look a bit of a mess though.

[AndrewG-S]

Update on 4125. I sent 4125 to my 15 year old daughter and somewhat to my surprise am now getting emails: "Dad what is a triangular number" etc. etc. On each solved square I get a phone call, quite encouraging although this could become irksome after 81 calls. Buoyed by this success I have also sent it to the maths teacher at my sons school (13 year olds) to see if it gets any traction there. It seems there is still hope for the younger generation.

[dr b]

Andrew: and how is her time in the mile run coming along?

[AndrewG-S]

dr b: all in good time, I figure I need to get through the listener challenge first before moving onto the cross country element

[dr b]

Maybe you can just have her work the "Cross Country" Listener from a few weeks back.

[aldanna]

I decided against the scissors approach and wrote the letters in, based on the misprints I had confidently found. Now I have gibberish in all directions, and the dedicatee is rubbish too. Although I have enjoyed this puzzle I am about to concede defeat. I'm retired. I know I'm what someone referred to recently as a 'sedate solver', but I wonder how people with jobs find the time to do the Listener and constantly put up posts here.

[JackDeCrow]

It is a bit of a conflict some weeks, aldanna - indeed, in the days before I discovered the online/Friday evening option and the electronic version of Chambers, there were some weeks where I did wonder whether the job was going to last!

[AndrewG-S]

aldana, it gives a real incentive to finish over the weekend as it is a nightmare for me if solving extends into the working week. Friday and Saturday nights while the family watches nonsense on TV are great times to sit and work through it. I honestly don't know how I would have survived "Glee" without the Listener to provide almost complete mental distraction

[bellabee]

aldanna - i think you might kick yourself if you give up on this one. - i didn't really understand the call for a 'black out' on hints because it seemed a pretty generous preamble + title to me.- before i solved a clue i had an idea for the thematic word, dedicatee and even a quote [although the latter proved to be wrong and the actual one is much better - although somewhat misappropriated, and this is the one tiny quibble i have with the puzzle as a whole]. the cluing is very tough though and i think one of the 'correct letters' could, at a push, be justified as another letter altogether. i should look again at the misprints. - i have recently joined the 'sedates' by the way.

[danielmason]

Thanks for the hint silversolver but I'm still stuck on 30. I'm sure of all the letters except the second (assuming the word runs inwards). This must be a vowel but none seems to give a word that gets anything with Googling. Any further hints please?

[abns]

You may be making too many assumptions Daniel

[Clamzy]

There's a sort of singular stem word in Chambers (four letters) which you may find if you have the first letter.

It runs outwards from centre to circumference

[Clamzy]

Sorry abns your post wasn't there when I hit the button.

[danielmason]

Thanks abns and clamzy. Have now got the missing letter. (I had hoped I would find it from the final grid (after rotations) but that cell didn't happen to occur in the quotation.) Some of the wordplay is far from obvious - so quite a challenge!

[logophile]

Sounds like the scissors approach may be worth a try aldanna - I had only identified 4 of the 6 cells with misprints with certainty, even though the misprinted word was fairly obvious from its first letter and the title. By rotating the rings it just took a few seconds to see the modified word in the quotation, and then the whole thing was apparent, thus helping to identify the 2 unknown cells - completion of the quotation then provided an extra letter to help solve the last 2 clues. That process would have been very laborious for me by any other method.

[mullingar]

Started on Tuesday and have a complete grid except for 31 radial. Is this word in Chambers? I can see a word that fits but bears little or no relationship to the clue. After googling I believe I have the dedicatee and can spot one or two references in the clues. Nearly time for the scissors

[Clamzy]

mullingar - Yes it's in Chambers and if you have 2 rad you already know the first 3 letters heading in the same direction.