Listener 4160 Stress Gauges

[Ruthrobin]

What a nicely clued and enjoyable solve. This was not the fearsome shocker we are all expecting one of these days. Please, please heed our pleas this week and don't spoil it for other solvers and those who are involved in the Listener competition, by announcing your clever answers and reasoning on the AB thread.

[Philoctetes]

Yes indeed, Jack. It is that one for which I have the entry that shares only 25% of letters with my answer to the clue. That is the problem with clashes - that they open up a number of possible answers. If, when the solution is published, the expected answer to that clue is given and I had a different answer but got the entry correct, should I morally write in and confess I had made a "mistake"?

[logophile]

Jack, the corrected misprints also explain how the clues resulting in entries with no clashes work. The clue with the 'extra words' wouldn't be long enough without them, but I still don't follow your reference to 25% Philoctetes (? 2 from 8)

[Philoctetes]

Sorry, but I cannot really explain further without giving the game away. But the only letters in common with the final entry are #6 and #8, for the shortest of the affected clues. Of course, that is another problem, as such a short clue cannot really guarantee definition and wordplay.

[Scree]

The clues to certain answers satisfy the message formed by the correct letters, and I don't see any uncertainty about the answers themselves. I do wonder whether all these clues are meant to have the same attribute that I find in some of them - I too can't find it in the shortest one, or one other.

But the message suggests we shouldn't insist that they do, so I'll heed the earlier advice and not stress over it!

[JackDeCrow]

No, I agree with not getting too stressed - the message does indeed suggest that all this doesn't matter. But it's always hard to completely relax when there's even the slightest element of a Listener that hasn't fallen into place! (I can't help feeling, Scree, that they do all have that attribute!) And as the for the length of one clue (logophile and others), I must be misunderstanding something but I don't see why the clue in question would be any less "word-from-message" without two of its words. Are these things expected to come in certain numbers?

[TheBear69]

I concur with much of what has already been said. I do not see the need for the extra words in 37a; I'm unsure of the answer to the clue which Philoctetes claims is 2/8 checked. I believe I understand everything else and I'm sure my grid is 100% correctly filled. So while I think this was a nice idea and overall the clueing was top-notch, the fact that for certain clues there is nothing to confirm an answer is bothersome. As someone else pointed out, in theory, the intended answer to a clue could have 0 checked letters in the grid...

[logophile]

I think that's exactly it Jack - the clue itself would work with 2 less words (actually syllables) but my understanding is that this form more usually has 8 syllables than 6 ?

My apologies to you Philoctetes and Jack, I'd wrongly assumed that not all the clues referred to in the message given by corrected misprints generate clashes - I'd also attributed your "25% issue" to a different clue, and I agree that this is an inherent weakness of this puzzle, which is otherwise ingenious.

[Philoctetes]

Just as an observation - this type of discussion is what is so appealing about AB, and why it should not be totally abhorred by the Listener community. Reading it, setters will be in touch with what their public want, and that cannot be a bad thing

[logophile]

I'm with you on that Philoctetes, and I couldn't agree more with TheBear - there is a possible answer for that clue relating to a table in Chambers with all the letters clashing !!

[ichkeria]

"Just as an observation - this type of discussion is what is so appealing about AB, and why it should not be totally abhorred by the Listener community. Reading it, setters will be in touch with what their public want, and that cannot be a bad thing "

What, exactly, do you consider the "Listener community" to be? Surely that is all of us, unless I am missing something?
This, I thought, was a brilliant puzzle in all regards, as you'd expect from this setter.

[Philoctetes]

There are those, such as Listnerite here and, if we believe what we hear and read, in influential positions in setting and assessing the puzzles, who have gone on record as saying using AB is cheating. They advise all within the Listener community to ignore this site. That is all I meant

[IainGrace]

Back in the groove with this one after hols. Fairly straightforward but enjoyable. Fell at the final hurdle with 4159 as we couldn't resolve the curve.

[IainGrace]

Haven't read all posts. Assume no one has beem smartass enough to post thematically?

[ichkeria]

"There are those, such as Listnerite here and, if we believe what we hear and read, in influential positions in setting and assessing the puzzles, who have gone on record as saying using AB is cheating. They advise all within the Listener community to ignore this site. That is all I meant "

Well, of course it's cheating - sort of! Especially if you're a regular solver. But surely we are all members of the solving community. It's just that some people prefer to solve alone and others like to chat about it as they do it. It personally doesn't bother me how people solve the puzzle. I enjoy reading the comments here and I am sure lots of the "Listenerites" do too or they wouldn't be here.