Listener 4188 Painless by Rasputin

[Coalminers]

I can't believe I'm the the first to post this week, so will someone tell me where I can find the real thread. Anyway, very enjoyable, and a subject that I have always enjoyed. Thanks Rasputin.

[aldanna]

By the way, I totally agree with Contendo (as often) in that I like to look at the discussion without wanting any hints.

[BlackHugh]

I finished this afternoon as well. I've got to say that these threads are going to become really boring if that is the only comment I can make. Useful information has already been given away.

[Alan7777]

Found the necessary changes before I'd worked out the instructions but all done now including the wordplay for the last couple of clues.

I first read these posts on Saturday mornings to get some idea about the degree of difficulty. As time moves on and I'm still struggling it's good to know that there are others in the same boat. Without these threads it would be a very solitary pastime.

[emcee]

Finished last night and too tired to post. But what a great puzzle with a mixture of (very) tough clues and some which allowed a (small) toe into the empty grid. I thought the distinct lack of anagrams refreshing and some of the clues devious yet clever.

I'm afraid I take the illiterate thicko prize not to have spotted the theme earlier although bells rang in my mind. So life was made more difficult in solving as I was too lazy to research it. (More fool me)

Rasputin, that was a very enjoyable solve for me and I look forward to your next.

[borealis]

Lovely. The garden took precedence over the weekend, but I think that helped, in the end. I particularly liked the good surface readings - and the fact that I had to use the thematic material to sort out some alternative answers which looked valid! Many thanks, Rasputin.

[Staurologist]

Not only painless, but [almost] timeless as well :>) So timeless, in fact that the theme has been used in the Listener before, over 20 years ago (when it really was The Listener). The grid was a picture of the relevant building and the timely theme had to be drawn in. I can give precise details to anyone interested ([email protected]). I recently saw (here, perhaps?) a reference to a databank of Listener themes, but foolishly neglected to bookmark the url. Has anyone else information about that? The point of it seemed to be to allow everyone to check whether a theme has been used before, so that (presumably) repetition can be avoided, but I see no problem about repeating a theme years later. Indeed, there are some old entertaining themes which could do with being repeated. That this theme had been used before, in the Listener and more recently in EV, in no way detracted from the entertainment, particularly since Rasputin's treatment was so very amusingly different. As always with themes of this sort, it also sent me back to read the original, which added to the pleasure and which is highly recommended.

As to the old debate about discussing the puzzles, I am with ichkeria on this, recognizing that there is wide disagreement. I come here after solving the puzzle, in order to read what all you people think about the puzzle itself, with specific (but not blatantly giveaway) comments about the theme, grid, and clues. Very often, for example, a comment about a specific clue sends me back to it, and I may see something that I hadn't spotted before. I am not interested in the types of comments that tell us that the solver is half-way through the grid but has had to put it aside to go shopping and will pick it up again tomorrow. And I also agree with tramart: we may be all obsessed with this pursuit (would we be here if we weren't?), but in the end it's only a game.

[tramart]

Staurologist : This might be the site you mention
<http://ccgi.laserbase.plus.com/crosswords/xw
db_home.html>

[Staurologist]

Many thanks, tramart. That may be it. Looking for the Listener puzzle I mentioned above, I entered a range of keywords into the search engine, but didn't come up with it, except in a few cases, when it was just one of a large number of other puzzles. For example, using the preferences "Any of the words" and "Keywords" and entering the missing words from the outer circle in "Painless" gave 1121 puzzles; limiting it to The Listener reduced it to 391 (including the required puzzle). Entering the same words in inverted commas gave only two, but neither was the puzzle I was looking for. However, those two were the EV example and another Listener puzzle, from less than 10 years ago, that used the same theme. Using "All of the words" and "Keywords" gave yet another Listener puzzle that was totally irrelevant. Entering the words to be highlighted in "Painless" gave four puzzles, the two already mentioned plus two from Magpie.

So, quite a powerful tool, but not the perfect answer to searching. In this case, no permutation of preferences that I tried, using the words that were missing from Rasputin's quotation, or the highlighted words, or other relevant words, turned up the puzzle I was looking for in a selection that was small enough to make discovery possible in a reasonable time.

[Staurologist]

Apologies to the search engine. I have just realised that it only goes back to 1991, and the puzzle I was looking for was published earlier than that. The one I saw in the long lists, which I thought was the right one, was a later entry in a series of puzzles by the same composer, with the same general title.

[bobbycollins]

I have stopped visiting this thread until I have got everything - too many hints recently. Cracking puzzle, but I am a big fan of radials - got a runner-up prize in the "Spem in Alium" puzzle a few years back. This was quite a bit less difficult than that one but none the less enjoyable for that.

Cheers, Rasputin.

[the_heisman]

Me too Bobby Collins - I have also stopped visiting before I have completed it for the same reason. I dislike the argument that you don't have to visit if you are worried about hints - as I don't feel that it is for certain visitors to tell others that they shouldn't use the site. But the blurters have a natural advantage over the hint-shunning running commentators sadly.

[cluelessJoe]

A long list here staurologist, Listeners only, and a search of a couple of key words turned up two puzzles on the theme, one from 2004 and one from 1989 - I presume the latter is the one to which you refer.

http://www.listenercr...ext_files/Puzzles.txt

[tramart]

A useful list.
As it's tab-delimited it has probably been saved from a spreadsheet. Easily reloaded by changing txt to csv, double-clicking and importing to a decent spreadsheet program (e.g. Openoffice Calc). Okay, stating the obvious perhaps.

[word_cross]

I always find radials hard work (not least because some of the cells end up very small meaning I struggle to read my writing!) but this was very enjoyable with a good balance of clue solving / PDM / more clue solving.

[Staurologist]

Thanks, cJ. The url I was looking for was the one that tramart quoted:

<http://ccgi.laserbase.plus.com/crosswords/xw
db_home.html>


It includes several other puzzles besides the Listener.

I am aware of the Listener site

<http://www.listenercrossword.com/Text_files/
Puzzles.txt>


but I wanted to search more widely. The earliest relevant Listener puzzle was indeed published in 1989 and there was another in 2004. If you go back to 1957 you will find another circular puzzle on a parallel theme.

[Scree]

First off, re 4187

I don't see how the discussion here posed real problems. I checked the site with a few fiddly bits unsolved in NE and SE corners, and appreciated the post directing me to the last letter of 45A. It was clear enough what the answer was, but better to know why.

I had an author, but there was no birthplace in the grid, and his novels clearly didn't fit the preamble in terms of numbers of words in the title. So I looked further and found the real target. I fail to see how this site gave me undue assistance (apart from encouraging me not to give up, which is good in my book).

As I was on leave this week, I had time to grind my way through some tricky clues and finish the latest offering. I was held up by answers for 38 and 41 which seemed perfectly justified by the clues but turned out to be wrong. Clearly I can't discuss these further!

[sunny-dave]

A week behind after hols - but that gives me two puzzles to do this weekend :)

Thoroughly enjoyed 4188 - like several others I really like radials - many thanks to Rasputin.

Some reverse engineering needed for the more recalcitrant clues, but a very satisfying puzzle with some nice PDMs.

Now for 4189 ....

[Postigod]

Definitely a toughie on the clues front - I have a complete bottom half bar 13 but have only solved 3 clues in the top half! But it was only when I finally got 23, 24, 27 and 28 this morning that suddenly the theme became crystal clear.

Now that I have rather more letters in the grid, I am hoping that the top half will yield its secrets rather quicker.