2016 In Listeners

[olichant]

Happy New Year to everyone! We've had a great year of Listeners, so thanks to the setters and editors as well as everyone who gathers here.

There's no chance that I'll be voting for best puzzle (and, no, it wasn't just the elusive hare that did for me) - which is no bad thing, because looking back, I have no idea how I'd choose. But stand-out favourites this year were Bandmaster's advent calendar and Shackleton's Shackleton. There were particularly tough puzzles from Sabre, Dysart, Kea's namesake and Smudge, all of which were very enjoyable struggles. And for pure delight, I loved Ploy's tribute to Flanders and Swann. Nice to see so many new setters, too.

Hope everyone has a great 2017, and here's to another fine run of puzzles.

[borealis]

No-one seems to have contributed here - a pity, since many of us commented on individual puzzles a lot!

Well, I write down a couple of ranking numbers for each puzzle I manage to do. One for difficuly, one for enjoyment. I suppose the "enjoyment" is pretty subjective, based on clues, construction, pdms, originality, surprise..... Each number is out of ten.
I have six puzzles equal top on 9 for enjoyment for 2016: Elap's Hailstorm, "The Bard"'s Bacon, Xanthippe's Philosophy, Shark's 4th Dimension, Poat's Hare (sorry - I got it wrong, but I loved both it and the controversy!) and Bandmaster's Advent.
Numbers? You want numbers? OK: 4386, 4406, 4409, 4414, 4422, 4427.
Choose one of these? 4406. By "The Bard".