Listener No 4215 Getting in Shape by Rood

[Ruthrobin]

Another cracker! We thought this was wonderful but how very tough. Obviously the editors are getting their own back on those who whinged that last week's lovely creation was too easy. We had pdm after pdm during the solving process, with astonishingly challenging but fair clues and thought the endgame was sheer magic. Thank you Rood for a stunning creation.

[starwalker]

Ruthrobin, you are quite correct - there are no calculations in this ! Have made some progress, but an 11 hour flight tomorrow has just had a small (?) diversion added. At some point on Sunday I hope to see the light of day and a pdm would be nice.

[olichant]

These clues are just delightful. I shall proudly recuse myself from the Friday club (I haven't got a chance) but no shame there.

Artix's blog on Listen With Others is well worth a look.

A happy weekend to one and all.

[jim360]

Well having stared at the clues for an hour or so and got as far as 44 across. So mainly I'm posting to plug my impending second University Challenge appearance this Monday at 8pm on BBC2. After a very tight first match in which we lost in the end by a mere 30 points, we get a second chance in the high-scoring losers match. See you there!

[starwalker]

Jim - I wish you the very best of luck (and also with this puzzle).

[BlackHugh]

jim360 - best of luck!

[Ruthrobin]

Yes, Jim360, I've been advertising the fact that you'll be on screen again on Monday. We'll all be supporting you. I endorse the comment about Artix's blog on Listen With Others. It's informative and highly amusing too.

[trux]

Fully agree that this was a tough challenge indeed - yet the clues are so beautifully constructed that solving was something of a joyous string of little victories. Gridfill was not as hard as originally feared and once started, I was surprised by how steady progress continued to be, leading on to the string of pdm's and final endgame. Many, many thanks to Rood for a great puzzle.

[trux]

And good luck to Jim (though I think he's playing a coy game as I would reckon that the programme has already been recorded so he, at least, knows how he got on....) I'll still be cheering him on...

[jim360]

Thread hijack - lol. Even if it has already been recorded (which, to be honest, is public domain knowledge that that does happen, so yes, I know the result already) I'd hardly spill the beans. Ruins all the excitement.

Two more clues got. Possibly. With one checked cell. Yeuch!

[dr b]

This was a lot of work, but all in all a fun one. Quite a construction.

[jim360]

Well I'm starting to break into this so it is possible, thank goodness. Bottom part of the puzzle almost done and of course that feeds back into the top in terms of shape. Long ways to go yet but good progress made. I shan't be posting any more of these until I'm done so will just randomly blab about UC for the next couple days...

[dylan123]

I'm slightly puzzled by the mirror symmetry aspect. Usually this refers to vertical or horizontal axes of symmetry- in this case, are the mirror lines sloping?

[jim360]

I think it's through the two diagonals. In which case the 180-degree symmetry is rather redundant, but whatever. Has to be those diagonals because of the two 5*5 blocks that break the other two lines of square symmetry.

[Texasetes]

What a contrast between this puzzle and last week's. It kept me going into the not so wee small hours, so my discovery of a Friday club was something of a shock. I take my hat off.

I found the clues very tough, but generally fair, though Ximenes would grumble about a few of them. One of my answers fitted the clue perfectly well, but not the grid or the associated instruction, and consequently held me up for some time. If grid symmetry hadn't rescued me I'd still be struggling.

Even with a completed grid and the instructions unravelled I didn't know what was happening until I'd spotted the thematic word, which made the final PDM all the bigger.

Should we expect more of these as an end of year sheep/goat filter? Fingers crossed.

Thanks, Rood.

[aldanna]

I know quite well I am a goat, but I am finding this really difficult. The omitted letter clues are not too bad, but the misprinted definition ones.... Maybe I have better things to do than failing to complete it. Will watch Jim on Monday, though!

[Texasetes]

aldanna - I should probably have said 'all-corrects/not-all-corrects'. There's a school of thought which holds that the Listener editors throw in a few toughies towards the end of the year in order to reduce the number of all-correct solvers. Whether this is actually the case I don't know, and it won't affect me anyway. But let's not go into that ...

[AHearer]

What a delight, with so many clever clues and the pdms that just kept coming. Many thanks, Rood.

[jim360]

Had to get on with uni work for the weekend, will be back to this is about an hour or so. Meanwhile, I genuinely just wrote down an equation with 34 separate terms, each themselves representing 64 different terms. Why did I choose this subject?!

[Ruthrobin]

Jim360, your comment on the symmetry is intriguing and perhaps not quite correct. Symmetry via both diagonals is essentially 90deg symmetry. 180deg and mirror symmetry is something different and is used here to help the solver rather than hinder. Once you have worked out what it is, you are well on your way to a solve. I think I am breaking no rules (I am occasionally accused of being part of the Listener police!) if I point out that you could fold this grid along the central NE to SW diagonal (the waist bit) and, in 'mirror symmetry' one part of the grid would echo the other - that is fit perfectly on top with the same bars if you looked through the two against a light. Don Manley's book explains that so I hope Rood (if he is reading) will not mind my giving that bit of cruciverbal input. (And thanks, Rood!)

[perseverer]

The Wiki page on the thematic word is not much help but it is quite clever.

This is certainly much more difficult than last week's but there have been harder this year.