Listener 4199 Scattered by Kea

[Ruthrobin]

What a pleasure to see a Kea puzzle but what a tough solve. No, not really opening the Friday club as I still have to produce my final grid and there is some demanding word play to sort out but many thanks to Kea for an astonishingly challenging puzzle!

[IainGrace]

Teuchter2, if it's any help (and it probably isn't), we made a wrong assumption initially as to which of the letters in 11ac were clashes - and the answer is a very obscure word ( at least as far as this household is concerned, and we do know quite a lot about the subject).

[IainGrace]

Finished the grid. Onward and upward. BlackHugh, sent you an email.

[BlackHugh]

Thanks to everyone for their help.

[teuchter2]

IainGrace, thanks for the comment. I haven't really made any assumptions about the clashing letter, but am perhaps on the wrong track. I am working on a word for secret enclosing some cane sugar in reverse. My preferred word for secret starts with a c. Perhaps you could just nudge me if I am on the wrong track.

[perseverer]

teuchter2 - check your email for a hint

[Coalminers]

Sometimes I ask myself why I put myself through the mental torture of trying to solve these Listeners...especaially when, after a couple of days, I have failed to see it through. And then the PDM, and I feel on top of the world...and I know exactly why I put myself through it. My PDM came, as is so often the case, in the middle of the night!
Looking forward to seeing you this evening Jim. I hope you do well....but I know you will do. You wouldn't have told us about it if you havd made a pig's ear of it!

[IainGrace]

Don't have Teuchter2's email to enable me to reply, but yes there is a wrong track involved here.

[Ruthrobin]

Jim360, if your team had all been as effective as you were, you would have won by a considerable margin. Well done. I hope we'll see your team again.

[Philoctetes]

Yes, Jim, a good showing (and some wonderful facial contortions). Hope you return.

[teuchter2]

Good to know I AM barking up the wrong tree. I didn't find any hint in my email, Perseverer. To be honest, I haven't given it a great deal of thought today, but will probably get back to it. It's so annoying when there's one answer eluding you.

[sunny-dave]

Only just starting this after a weekend away - looks like a good 'un awaits me ...

[perseverer]

teuchter2 -I have tried again!

[jim360]

Yes, watching my face on that particle accelerator question was not pretty. I had an answer (LHC) in mind - then realised as soon as I had pressed the buzzer that it was wrong, and just named the next one that came into my head. One letter wrong! Drat. Can't be helped. And at least I upstaged the classicists...

My favourite one was possibly the prime number one. Not a difficult question, to be sure, but my counting went 2,3,5,7,19. Skipped the next three. weird how the brain works sometimes.

We'll see whether it's a high enough score to make the play-offs.

[IainGrace]

Teuchter2, happy to assist further if you supply us with an email address.

[Alan7777]

Slow progress is being made here. I have seven clashes and a sixteen letter description but I'm struggling to work out what I need to do next. Sleeping on it didn't provide the blinding insight. I will continue as it sounds as if it's worth the effort.

[freiheid]

I'm in the same boat, Alan. No nocturnal flashes although I have filled the grid and have the sixteen letters (I'm assuming they are to be read as three words). Not really clear at this stage how to interpret them, so subtle hints without giveaways would be appreciated.

[olichant]

Finding this very tricky - only 60% or so of the grid filled - maybe it is just me, but the upper part seems much harder than the bottom. But one of the many advantages of this forum is that the discussion above has made me determined to see this through to the bitter end. I'm sure I'd have given up by now if it were not for some of the comments here!

[contendo]

And I'm another one in the same boat. Many more of us in here and it will sink. It's the north west quadrant than I'm finding particularly tough. Not knowing where the clashing letters are lurking makes life difficult.
Well done Jim360 - I especially enjoyed your pulling a fast one on the classicists over the Herodotus quote.

[jim360]

One tip, freihied and Alan, might be to try to find a way (there may be more than one, though) of completing the grid as per the instruction "all entries are real words" while making only seven changes to letters. There's certainly a limit to the number of ways this can be done. And of course only one right way. But making progress, or trying to, like that might give you more information to work with later down the line.

If it's any comfort to you oil I also found the top half trickier. Felt sure that I had identified a clash in one word Before I'd solved it because of the double consonant start but no, for example!

Contendo - never recognised the quote, only the talk about the battle! Seemed worth a punt given that it's probably the only one most people know about tingling a major amount of Spartans.

[crosswhit99]

You are correct about the number of words freiheid and should consider carefully exactly what the first word (as qualified by the second) could refer to - there are options !