Listener 4154: Downsizing by Dilwitch

[midazolam]

Another debut! I am usually not one for Listener's where there's no PDM etc but I enjoyed this one. Difficulty enhanced by the difference in definition and wordplay together with some tough clues.

Good clues were the & lit in 16A, the clever wordplay in 7D and excellent 1A. I also liked the new usage of waterboard in 38A

Less favourable clues were the odd 28D (wordplay being the whole clue and definition being only half - just doesnt work), 11A (definition veering away from BRB - although given my avatar..say no more!) and the obscurities in 15A (capitalisation & random made up word)

Overall a fun, challenging debut. Thanks Dilwitch

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[pushmi-pullyu]

IainGrace, thanks again for the hint - I have now completed last week's.

[silversolver]

jim360 and other newbies - I think the most useful tip I picked up from this forum when I first started doing the Listener a couple of years ago was to go and buy a copy of 'Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary', and also to be made aware of the 'Chambers Word Wizard' and 'Quinapalus' websites. I know that some purists prefer not to use them, but they save me hours of hard graft every week!

[Clamzy]

Zabadak - I like to encourage newcomers as much as the next person, but this particular solver was asking for hints at the beginning of this thread before having solved a single clue. Therefore I stick to my opinion that a spell learning to swim at the shallow end is advisable before jumping in the deep end:-)

[IainGrace]

Our pleasure, pushmi-pullyu. Doubtless the favour will be returned in the future, or indeed may already have been so in the past (if that makes sense) without express acknowledgement on our part.

[Zabadak]

Clamzy - only Jim can say how much splashing around in the shallow end has so far taken place. For my part, I trundled along for ages with the Times/Sunday Times, the latter being the first I ever completed, having been started off by my uncle, blessed be he. Mephisto came pretty soon after, wearing out successive BRB's until the electronic version came along. I started the Listener pretty much when the Times took it on in 1991. I arrived here in (apparently) 2009, desperate for hints on a particularly arcane Listener, and love to feel a part of this slightly whacko community.
I would certainly agree that this should not become a place where every clue is analysed/explained before revelation day, and I quite like the fact that blunt answer requests are not welcome and don't even appear in the general crossword questions. But along with the buzz of being in the Friday Club (mostly), there is the buzz of being part of what is, after all, a pretty small (elite?) constituency that shares, at whatever level, a curious obsession.
I'm betting that - access permitting - Jim360 will hit the Friday club sooner rather than later, as it rather looks as though the bug has bitten.
As a postscript, I've now seen the answers to the last numerical, and I still don't have a clue what's going on Should I just concentrate on Sudokus for the time being?

[Clamzy]

I have the greatest admiration for all the Friday club members and also wish Jim every success. What prompted me to raise this was that I feared someone who found starting 4153 and 4154 difficult, might be dismayed when a Sabre, Kea or Phi comes along.
It is my privilege to give hints privately off line to several members of this community most weeks. However they are all competent solvers who have ' hit the wall' so to speak. I know they have given the puzzle their best shot and only ask for help when at the 'tearing their hair out' stage is reached.
I quite enjoy the odd sudoku also:-)

[Staurologist]

I agree with Midazolam's opening remarks. Good clueing transformed what might otherwise have been a rather tedious hour or so. I thought that I had seen something of this sort before, and a couple of minutes in the archives turned up Simmo's "Haplographic" (Listener no. 1507, 16 April 1959). It was published without any preamble! I'm sure there must be others.

I am surprised at Clamzy's somewhat patronizing attitude to newcomers ("I feared someone who found starting 4153 and 4154 difficult, might be dismayed when a Sabre, Kea or Phi comes along"). Everybody finds their own level of solvability and should be encouraged to try everything. The more who get entertainment out of solving, or trying to, the better. I cut my teeth on the eclectic "Connoisseur's Crossword Book" edited by Alan Cash (Penguin, 1964) and wore out the 1959 edition of the BRB (in a medium-sized blue leather-bound edition) doing so. It took me well over a year to work my way through the fifty puzzles, and it was a terrific education, introducing me as it did to the Listener, Torquemada, Ximenes, Mephisto, and others.

[Clamzy]

And I find it surprising that it's OK to "call on the hint givers" on the first day of publication having solved no clues at all:-)

[AndrewG-S]

Poor Jim360, is probably doing a rapid 180 from this site!

[Zabadak]

Better not be!

[AndrewG-S]

I hope not too, but it did feel a bit like having a new guest at a dinner party, unsure of the etiquette, tentatively picking up a knife and fork, hoping it was the right one.....and being greeted with a long debate about how awful it was to use the wrong cutlery!

[tenflags]

Mixed feelings about this one for me;

Having got used to the 'precision' usually required for with Listeners, and in the past struggled with exacting standards for clue setting competitions, I am not convinced about the use of some loose clues - words doing double duty etc. Especially when I spent so long last week trying to find and justify the final (original) two letters to be substituted.

Having said that I, like others, enjoyed some of the clues very much 37a in particular also made me laugh.

I have no real desire to engage in debate but would say that when I started here I found Clamsy to be both welcoming and helpful. I think his intention, and suggestion, about any new person gaining experience was simply trying to be helpful.

[dr b]

I agree with Z's post above save for the use of the qualifier "slightly".

On an unrelated note, for some reason his cartoony avatar makes me want to yell "Zabba-dabba-doo!".

[AndrewG-S]

Isn't it one of the peanuts characters - Linus?

[Zabadak]

Certainly is - with just the right expression of serial bewilderment.

[IainGrace]

Finished now. Despite earlier reservations, agree that it was quite challenging and interesting. 37 ac was amusing. Dead-eye's racing hint did help us to unlock that corner.

[Philoctetes]

I felt that 10d had a ring of an answer that sparked a whole crossword

[abns]

10d was the last one I got and left me wishing that there were more like that - although that's really just greediness on my part. It was a bit of a shame that Mississippi was saved for the preamble and I was slightly disappointed that sub-bookkeeper didn't make it in.

Having said that, I agree with the view that the entertaining clueing and relatively rapid grid fill made this a joy rather than a slog

[TheBear69]

perseverer - thanks for the link to OED online and the suggestion to enter your library card number. I find it very strange that there was nothing in the interface to check that your number is somehow related to you...just enter the number. How in the world it knows that it's a legitimate number is a mystery....

[TheBear69]

I think the clue to 17A is superb.