Listener 4302: When All Else Fails By Ottorino

[AHearer]

Well, I paid my subscription in the end, and a puzzle like this makes it worth while. Mind you, I don't know how anybody could complete it without an early PDM allowing almost 3/4 of the grid to be filled. A lovely construction and a great challenge. Thank you, Ottorino.

[olichant]

I should have added - some of these clues are something special.

[IainGrace]

Excellent puzzle. Classic Listener standard and a theme well known to us.

[doctormatt]

Fantastic: just enough help to get there in the end, even if I wasn't familiar at all with the theme. Beautiful construction too.

[tristram37]

My heart sank with all the initial cold solving required before one could make much progress with the grid. But perseverance with frequent returns sometimes to solve just one clue eventually paid dividends and the denoument was worth the wait. Thanks, Ottorino.

[Ornis]

Fun theme and excellent clueing. I too thought the highlighting a bit superfluous but overall I really enjoyed this. Thanks to Ottorino

[contendo]

Just checking. I've tried twice to post a comment here but it hasn't appeared. If this appears I'll try again.

[contendo]

Well I don't know what went wrong, but the Answerbank now asks for my username and password every time. I haven't had to do that previously. Anyway I thought this was a brilliant contribution from Ottorino. Even with the wonders of computers it beats me how anyone can construct a crossword like this, where the positioning of the letters in each answer has to be unique and at the same time there is the restriction imposed by the theme. Some of the clues were delicious. I especially liked 41A. It was one of those crosswords where I thought I was never going to be able to complete it but it kept unfolding bit by bit until the end was in sight. Superb.

[UglyUncle]

A delight to finish but a slog at the beginning, as the letters with confirmed positions led slowly but surely to some logical completions of various shorter lights.

Curiously enough, the clue that revealed the most distinctive of the omitted letters led to a word which, according to the BRB, has a thematically appropriate etymology.

[Staurologist]

This superb text (which was also used a few years ago in the Inquisitor series in the Independent) has frequently amused, and occasionally consoled, me over the years. Good to see it realized here so neatly. Its title could easily have been used as the title of the puzzle without a great risk of giving anything away. Given the haunt and its thematic denizens a circular puzzle would have been appropriate. I shall now go and look out the relevant movie again.

[petefoxes]

I enjoyed this a lot, and was grateful for the PDM helping me out enormously as my cold-solving isn't brilliant at the best of times, let alone when there are so few checks. The construction is ingenious: I feel bad for having doubted it when one of my answers didn't fit the fixed letters specification, before I realised it was one of the 'haunt' clues and could then be solved with the same letters in a different order. Very rewarding perseverence - thanks, Ottorino.

[sunny-dave]

A bit behind with this - but had a very enjoyable few hours today - should have been quicker but I was a bit dim about the theme.

Great puzzle - thanks Ottorino

[Whenland]

listener 4338