Listener 4108 - Past and Present by Emkay

[starwalker]

Lovely whilst it lasted. Definitely one for beginners and newcomers.
Sadly, it leaves me without an excuse for Mrs Starwalker's grand garden redesign tomorrow.

[aldana]

OK, I was a little disingenuous, having a shrewd idea what a doozy was, but offering a slight Brit/US tease in the direction of drb. Have been struggling to find a worthy riposte to the "hornswoggled", and failing.

[daagg]

Aldana, it's a bit like stamps - we English claim all the words (including funny ones) unless explicitly specified. The Americans seem to claim ownership of the web by the same means, but obviously that was invented by an Englishman as well.

[Philoctetes]

So long as they claim to be speaking "English" the words are, de facto, ours ;)

[Eril]

Another joins our ranks - a colleague who has been getting very close indeed can mark this one as his first complete. Congrats to him

[Archie1962]

Quite easy but it makes up for the difficulties of last week and finding out that I had made a single letter mistake in "Out to Work". My first "incorrect" (as opposed to "failed utterly") this year I think.

[turast]

I liked it. I totally agree with staurologist that one of the pleasures of 4108, was that it lead to a quotation in a work (unfamiliar to me), which contains some surprisingly modern and, dare I say it, raunchy moments. I might even get my A Level English studying daughter to read something a little off the beaten track, as she's already very keen on a version of the protagonist's earlier life.

[mullingar]

Yes I finished it too. My second fully completed puzzle. Am I missing something though? Is there a connection between the quotation and the more modern undefined solutions?

[turast]

Mullingar
I don't think you are missing anything. It is a weakness of the end game that the theme doesn't hold strikingly together, I suppose. An earlier contributor thought that the quotation does seem very modern, and I agree. A repeated word in the quotation is in daily use in connection with the other parts of the theme. Have you stayed in Mullingar, unlike the poor bloke in that song by the Fureys? It always brings a tear to my eye.

[perseverer]

Apropos of nothing very much - there is a fairly common phrase in Ireland "beef to the heels like a Mullingar heifer" - a not very complimentary way of describing a lady's legs!

[turast]

Bring back Trafalgar Day.

[rabet]

I thought this was an entertaining puzzle with an ingenious grid but I'm not sure about the "theme". It seems very tenuous and the various elements don't really hang together ~ or perhaps I'm missing something.

[mullingar]

No Turast, I live in a little village in the north east now (Rock) but I'm originally from Coventry. Mullingar is where my father was from and he loved his word puzzles

[cookie]

Coming to this very late, because of various circumstances. Start to finish in about an hour, but why no mention of Val Doonican in the preamble?