Listener 4185 : Ballad by Elgin

[trux]

(sorry started on wrong site, apparently) - so repeat here :
Well, we had all been moaning that the Big L was getting to be the Big EZ ... not this week, mefears but after a mammoth struggle, have now finished gridfill. OMG. Wow ! Thanks (methinks) to Elgin.... (see previous msg for longer version, too tired to type more....)

[Alan7777]

Found the theme - brilliant! Happy now.

[JackDeCrow]

Thanks Sunny Dave - would love to hear both explanations at [email protected] if you have the time.

[sunny-dave]

OK - you have mail :)

[growf]

Though I'm stumped by the wordplay for 11d and 19d, finally working out the theme blew my socks off. What an astonishing feat (and I learned a new bit of trivia from 17d). Blimey!

[Postigod]

Wow! Finally made it to the end - got the theme from the extra column, but it took me a while to get the final pdm on the two unclued entries and the link back to the titular theme. now that is all there, I have to say I'm amazed at the construction.

A few of the clues were simply wonderful too - particularly 7, 8 and 9.

Have a few wordplays/definitions still to resolve satisfactorily to say that I've really completed it (H, L, R, T, 6, 10, 11, 13, 15) but those can wait until tomorrow!

[Rogue-Elfe]

Giving up now. With 7 down answers and 11 across all cold solved and utterly unlinkable, I am beginning to realise I was correct in my pre-assumption that I needed to get one of the 13 letter words. I have neither, and have been staring for days. Not constantly, but on and off like an addict. (I suppose I am, when you think about it). Henceforth saving a stamp a week like I did last year. Ah well, silver lining.

[Japp]

I enjoyed the challenge, but was then completely underwhelmed when I completed the grid fill. Was that it? Luckily it wasn't and the amazement at how much thematic content there was left to find was, I think, greater due to the initial disappointment. So I'm quite glad that there was no additional highlighting etc or other hints that there was more to come.

[cathfromsaron]

why not cut/copy and paste instead of re-typing then?

sorry don't know what the question is ...?

[Philoctetes]

As usual, I nibbled at this a couple of clues at a time, and now have a full grid....but no idea of the theme. I presumably have to Google a combination of some or all of: unclued entries; clued non-entries; missing columns; Aunt Jemima's birthday. Or I could just submit what i have, secure in the knowledge that any further connection needed is so obscure it probably breaks the rules.

[word_cross]

Had a reasonably early initial PDM, having spotted a couple of likely candidates for thematic material in my across answers, which I then Googled, and hit on the answer in the first thing Google returned. However, the grid fill was still far from simple! I think this was a good challenge, with plenty of gentle nudges to send me in the right direction for my initial Google - no criticism from me.

[tramart]

Philoctetes - I had a full grid, but it was only when the theme 'clicked' that I realised one entry was wromg.

[the_heisman]

I am surprised at the comments that the theme is obscure. Having done so many poems and extracts from plays that I have never heard of in my short Listener career I thought this was a bit more mainstream. Very impressive of Elgin to weave in the theme to so much of the crossword.

[rickye]

What makes the Listener so compelling? Whilst I nearly always find them enjoyable there are rare occasions when I find one to be too clever for its own good and feel it does not deserve my patience and time. Ballad was one of the rare cases at the other end of the spectrum. It was tough but fair and required a lot of mental gymnastics plus the occasional revisit to a definition in Chambers to convinvce the answer truly was correct. But this one then ended in a blaze of glory with lights flashing as the final 2 blank letters were filled in once the title had at last been sussed. I felt a little sorry for those brighter than myself who got to the end prematurely as they missed out the triumphal final bars which Lenny Bernstein who have greatly enjoyed.
There is also the dream of winning the thing - which I did in January after years of devotion. But one win is not enough. Congratulations Elgin - marbellous!

[mullingar]

I have all but four of the downs (1,1,11,15,&16) and all but J,O & R in the arosses. I have managed to enter only 7 and one of those is partial given a guess at the place where the missing column might be. I think could put in the answer for P but I have lost confidence as I feel I must be missing something and maybe the answers I have already entered are misplaced.There certainly seems no place for my second long answer unless it's jumbled in some way. and that leaves me with an awful lot of hard-earned answers that I can't enter. Grrrr. Sometimes I guess you just have to hold your hands up...

[mullingar]

Some more progress to report. I think I have found a way to enter the two long answers and I have solved 1,16 & R. Still mystified but I plough on...

[vetuste_ennemi]

Did anyone, like me, guess the other missing entry correctly and then waste a lot of google time going up blind alleys?
Mullingar, the long answers are entered normally (within the constraints of the puzzle).

[mullingar]

Thanks v. I think I've worked out the top and bottom halves of the grid but I run into trouble in the middle where my 'symmetry' goes haywire. Still struggling with 11 down and J but I'm nothing if not persistent...

[gribble]

Rouge-Elfe
if you want the two thirteen letter answers email me at [email protected]

[Cruncher]

A lucky Google finally found me the theme after a week of slog to construct the grid. Just as well because I had made a wrong guess about one of the unclued entries. Gosh I thought that was tough and just a little too obscure although it made sense the end. I too cannot figure out the wordplay for a couple of down entries but hey ho

[Philoctetes]

Now I know what it is, I realise it is really quite mainstream, just very cleverly disguised. And thanks to Elgin to reminding me.