Listener 3993

[cruciverbali]

Today's challenge is Argentum by Radix. I'm off camping now, so lets hope the rainclouds in the Lakes have a silver lining too !

[angrysolver]

And in addition to my comment above, when the all-corrects were informed this year, at least one of them came on here to thank various others with a comment along the lines of "without your help I would have been at least ten short", or words to that effect. It may only be a minority of unscrupulous individuals who are prepared to pass off collaborations as their own work and submit them, but to suggest that it doesn't happen is simply wrong - there is ample proof to the contrary.

[spiderFreak]

Personally I think solving crosswords is about having fun, and to compare people sharing hints about the fun of solving a crossword puzzle to dealing is drugs is ludicrous.

Because of their nature, solving listener crosswords can be a rather lonely experience and I�ve found that reading and participating in this site adds a lot of enjoyment to the whole experience � just read some of the posts at the start of this thread.

So I don�t think it�s going to stop. Like the advent of Chambers on a CD (which makes solving so much easier), that�s progress.

[poorsolver]

I'm sorry but I don't see how people can be on their high horse about "getting hints" when in the same breath they accept that using an on-line Playfair solver is fine.

I have been trying to solve the Listener on and off for more years than I care to remember and getting nowhere apart from the odd Apex and Zander puzzle (can't see how any of the new setters compare with them, they all want to be Sabre or Kea, apart from the dreadful Dipper!). In the past five years I have finished exactly 8 Listeners, and only sent in one when I felt I had deserved to.

I don't trouble JEG with my entries as I'm a pretty hopeless solver (hence my name!) but I can never improve my solving and understanding without seeing how to get there. Waiting three weeks till the solution is published is like cleaning up after the Lord Mayor's coach and horses have gone past.

Turning the Listener into a Masonic lodge is hardly the way to get in younger solvers, or does everyone accept that we are doomed, eventually to be swallowed up by a Japanese Sudoku beast?

If you don't want hints or nudges, don't come here. Are solvers here so desperate to want to win dictionaries or an invite to a dinner they have to stump up a lot of money for? I just don't see it.