Listener 4291: Maxon By Schadenfreude

[emcee]

Luckily I spotted what had to be done fairly quickly -- a device regular solvers will have met before. This assisted in solving some tough clues.

Slightly underwhelming, feeling a little short-changed.

Not one of Schadenfreude's best.

[sunny-dave]

... hit 'submit' too quickly ...

Sorting out 10d may also help with the correct answer and parsing of 18a - certainly did for me.

[s_pugh]

Well I enjoyed this one despite the misgivings of others although it took me absurdly long for the PDM. I'm with Sunny-Dave and Scorpius on 18a though, as the last clue for me to crack I could see what the answer must be and the wordplay led to but the link to the definition eluded me. As with S-D thankfully it was "tinternet" to the rescue (and I wouldn't mind but I once worked in the linked city!). Thanks to Schadenfreude.

[Scorpius]

Thanks, sunny-dave. All sorted now. To this solver at least the definition for 18a is very obscure. Still, I now know something I didn't know before.

[Staurologist]

I thought that this was a neat rendering of two quite well-worn themes--the clashing cells and the recreation. The clues were refreshingly novel in places (e.g. the definitions in 2 and 18 and one of the subsidiary indications in 11A) and I especially admired the way in which the clues were constructed so that the final surface reading was good while that of the proper clue (i.e. stripped of its extra letter) often was not. My only minor complaint was that the layout of the thematic elements was not quite right centrally. I agree with jim360 about the optimistic title, particularly given the NW corner and the positions of the thematic elements--possible, though.

[Mesnilpat]

Having been a bit wet here for planned gardening, I did stick with this and I think I've finished, with help from him indoors for the thematic stuff. I don't understand 18ac at all, even after consulting t'internet, so think I must have something wrong.

[teuchter2]

I haven't posted for a while, but have managed the last few, and considering my familiarity with the theme it took me ages to get it. I am almost totally stuck on the left half, with the exception of 2d and 16ac, but haven't had too much time to spend on it so will keep going.

[maurice]

By my standards this was madness! Got there in the end with a lot of help from a friend. By comparison his CAM puzzle was a romp, and that's saying something!

[UglyUncle]

The theme didn't take too long to guess, as the message derived from the extra letters could be surmised after identifying about a third of them from solved clues and then looking for plausible extras in the rest.

But my goodness there were some tough clues, several of which I was only able to solve by working back from the positions and components of the clashes. It took three internet searches to discover the definition in 18ac.

The inaccuracy in the thematic layout could have been avoided with a slightly larger/smaller grid, but with so many constraints to observe in putting it all together that's perfectly forgivable. It was the anti-climactic title that disappointed me.

[jim360]

Since there has been progress made, who's to say that along the way some of the so-called "inaccuracies" weren't caused by totally reasonable incidents? We've seen a wide distribution in the grid of one particular set of the thematic clashes, so it's likely that along the way the expected layout was changed a bit...

[UglyUncle]

A very reasonable point, jim360. On reflection though, at this stage in the progress, the slight inaccuracy could only have been achieved by an extraordinarily proficient operator! I think we had this problem with a similarly themed puzzle last year: it's only the implausibility of the scenario that makes the puzzle fair to the solver.

[trux]

Not underwhelmed at all. Clever construction, some very tough (but always ultimately fair) clues and a theme I much enjoy. Even the plausibility of continuation is not impossible in my view but would require much skill. Many thanks to Schadenfreude for another enjoyable and well-crafted puzzle.

[olichant]

Took ages for the penny to drop for me. But count me very much as a fan of this one. It was a very satisfying solve for this poor struggler.

[Alan7777]

I enjoyed this one. Like many others I found some of the clues to be hard and it took me a lot longer than it should have to identify the theme.

[borealis]

I'm not underwhelmed, in the least. Maybe no final pdm, but this was very hard, for me anyway. I like the device, as I do any which gives leverage to the entries once discovered. Not very familiar with the background, but isn't that a great feature of the Listener, rather than a drawback?
Thanks, Schadenfreude - not one of your worst, either!
Am I seeing this with rose-tints? No, I don't think so - genuinely hard and more than averagely enjoyable.