Listener 4354 Taxi! By Ilver

[fyellin]

No one has solved this yet?? It's Friday afternoon in California, so after midnight in the UK.

I'm in a strange position. Solved grid. I know the quotation, its source and the corresponding key. No idea what to do with the key. Yet I also strongly suspect I know six of the seven cells containing the "resulting identity", and so it's clear what the seventh cell is and what it needs to contain. I can presume how a word gets unjumbled to fill in that seventh cell.

Something's wrong when I think I can create what appears to be a correct grid to mail in without knowing what to do with the key, what the second quotation is, or what the contradiction is.

I hope the purpose of the key makes sense soon, and that I will discover that I've been bamboozled in some amazing way.

[Cruncher]

Olichant - Many thanks. I'll email you

[petefoxes]

About 50/50 grid-fill/grid-staring for me. I really enjoyed the construction - well done, Ilver. Probably not a beginner's puzzle but the PDMs weren't quite as much of a leap of faith as some. Nothing wrong with a bit of trial and error!

[jim360]

I'd say for me it was more a case of not being on the right wavelength for the intermediate step of finding the second quote. Too distracted by the final identity, and various things linked to it. In retrospect it made more sense to focus on the first quote and those involved, and see the final highlighting as the end result rather than as the main theme.

[icynorth]

On the subject of distractions: a German friend once taught me a phrase they use when a situation forces them to eat something they don't particularly like: 'Augen zu und durch' (Shut your eyes and get on with it). I now apply this principle to Listeners - I read just enough preamble to get on with the clue solving, blinkered to the temptations of the subsequent instructions. I'll look at those only after I get truly stuck.

It's served me well in this and other recent puzzles (notably 'What's missing')

[fyellin]

A co-solver finally found the second quotation, and I found the contradiction.

No, my first guess at what to send in would have been incorrect. I'm glad the puzzle is done, but I don't feel amazingly bamboozled in any way. More relieved.

I'm also mildly disappointed on a different matter. The two quotations are by different (but related) authors. The identity, though cunningly placed into the grid, really has nothing to do with either of them. I know why this identity was chosen, but there is no hint of that in the instructions.

[tnap]

fyellin - I think that if you look up the identity in Wikipedia, you will find the link to the second quotation.

[IainGrace]

Upsetter, happy to give some assistance if you wish at [email protected].

[fyellin]

@tnap: Yes, I understood why this identity was used. I had actually looked at the Wikipedia article before making my posting. Still. . . .

I just think the setter was trying too hard to be terse and uninformative in the end game. Even to have changed "identity" to "relevant identity" doesn't give away any information [for most puzzlers, I suspect you either know the identity long before you reach the final step or you don't know it at all], but makes the pieces feel like they belong together.

[PhantomX]

I've now seen how to use the key to find the first quotation, but looking up the identity hasn't given me anything that goes into 24 grid cells, even encoded or decoded with the key.

[Philoctetes]

Once more, I learnt of something that I had not heard of before, and am amazed by the intricacies of construction. But, once more, how can one find the identity using only standard reference works and not the internet (I used Google using obvious search terms)? Though I knew the story behind the first quotation, the connection with the second is incidental, and neither is connected with the ultimate identity. In the spirit of encouraging criticism, I would say the whole thing could be improved with more flow from one step to the next.

[icynorth]

The final identity epitomises the theme to many people. I can't think of a better one, and it's the setter's triumph to represent it as they have, not to mention all the other bells and whistles which led to it.

[Scorpius]

"The final identity epitomises the theme to many people."

It also means absolutely nothing to many other people.

I agree with Philoctetes that there could have been a clearer path for the solver to follow. While the incidental connection between the two quotations and the final identity is not a thematic flaw, it does make it tricky for non-specialists to track down the identity, especially as the grid arrangement masks the correct formulation of it. My initial attempts to track it down produced pages of completely irrelevant hits. In the end a Wiki footnote got me there.

[jim360]

Even if you don't study the relevant subject in depth, it's hardly an obscure identity. At my High School even before we were taught about it, it was part of the relevant department logo, so all those people in the school who didn't give two hoots about it will have come across it. I would be surprised if that was an unusual experience.

And heck, you were given 6/7 of the identity from the grid. Even if you had no idea what it was, typing what was in those cells would take you quarter of a second to find what should fill the seventh. And standard reference works probably would be good enough too as it's basically an end-of-high-school standard. And if all else failed at least it was clear what sort of subject the identity came from so asking anyone from the field would have worked too.

We've had far less to go on with more classical topics, I'd say. Admittedly this is right up my street, but the identity part of the endgame looked pretty fair to me.

[Philoctetes]

Jim, I may be wrong, but I thought a puzzle that required an internet search was against the rules. I must confess to only having O-level in the subject, plus a few years of adult life, and I had not come across this, or some of the ideas or people involved (except through the Listener crossword). I am at a loss, in truth, as to which the "standard reference works" might be, so perhaps someone could advise. As I said, Googling the obvious search elements made life simple, as it also did last week. But is this within the rules, or the spirit, of the Listener?

[PureListener]

Jim - I studied the subject in depth and the identity was quite clear to me as the grid was being filled. However, for those not familiar with the theme, the identity could prove to be problematic because it is not clearly formatted in the natural way. Nevertheless, a great theme and solve, even though the leap from the first quotation to the second was a bit hit and miss.

[jim360]

Well, just about any A-level textbook in the subject, for a start. Also the identity crops up in several books for the general reader on the subject, because as has been hinted earlier it is regarded as the supreme example of what the 2nd quotation refers to. With a bit of effort, then, it can be found in a library and so will be well within Listener rules.

[crucifer]

As someone who's keen on the underlying theme and who's not averse to a bit of code-cracking, this should have been right up my street. I am familiar with the first quotation and have spotted the identity. But I can't for the life of me see what I'm supposed to be doing with the key in order to find the other quotations etc. I've tried various key-based decoding techniques but without knowing what exactly I'm supposed to be decoding that has proved fruitless.

I've only been tackling Listeners for a few months but this will be the first one this year that feels like it's going to beat me so I don't think I'm a complete novice.

Here's hoping the opposite of the commentator's curse strikes and inspiration strikes immediately after posting...

[olichant]

Crucifer, feel free to email me if you'd like a gentle hint (email address appears in an earlier posting).

[crucifer]

Thanks Oli. As discussed via email your gentle hint was all it took. Kicking myself a bit for overcomplicating things, especially after Ilver's comment.

[IainGrace]

Solved the *** and got all the steps. Thanks for the workout, Ilver.