Listener 4228 : Detective Work By Ilver

[jockie]

Well, that was fun! Surely I'm not the first in the teatime club?

[IainGrace]

Finished. Like one or two others, wondering if there is more to it. Two of the central characters are (7,6).

[Ruthrobin]

Neutralistic, please email me at [email protected] I truly sympathise with your dilemma which is hitting a few of the AB friends. We are told the situation will be sorted out in April.

[upsetter]

The full grind resolves Iangrace's dilemma. For those of us who simply blundered into the right theme words, the clever preamble (and pre-preamble?) were as pearls before swine

[neutralistic]

Aldanna we have the BRB on the ipad, but it's no substitute for the CD version. We bought the BRB Deluxe (Dictionary and Thesaurus) in the app store, which cost about £7 and although it has all the words in it, there is no full text search. The search functionality is somewhat confusing, this review explains it better than I can...
"The main flaw is the search functionality, which is restricted to headwords and so misses over half the words in the dictionary. For example 'detective' comes under the headword 'detect', and while any type of search will return 'detect', none of them (wildcard, anagram, etc.) will return 'detective'. Similarly all the 'un-' words like 'undo' are hidden under headwords 'un- (1)' to 'un- (5)' and can't be searched. "

I believe the separate Dictionary and Thesaurus Apps have better reviews (£5 and £3 respectively)

[doorbell]

The following appears in the FAQs of the Times Crossword Club (www.crosswordclub.co.uk). It may help

I became a member of the old Crossword Club and have come to the end of my annual subscription. I can no longer log in. I thought my subscription would automatically renew? What has happened?

When we moved over to the new site we had to cancel all renewing subscriptions. This means when your annual subscription comes to an end you will not automatically be billed for the next year. You will have to start a new rolling subscription.

When you do so a new Futurepay id will be allocated to you, which you will find under 'My Profile' - 'My invoices'.

[Whenland]

Aldanna- we use the BRB App on a Samsung smartphone (Android operating system). You can search using wildcards and it's very quick. Although you can buy Chambers for the Kindle you basically just get a book - I don't know that you can get a BRB app for the KIndle.

[olichant]

Very enjoyable. Might have been a little tougher if we had not been given the length of the theme, i.e., the 7, 6. A very neat and cleverly-integrated construction.

[Anapice]

Doorbell - Thanks for your post. I don't know how up to date the FAQs are but that's not what's happening now. Automatic renewals are going through OK but not any others.

[Scorpius]

I'm clearly missing something here. I have a full grid which includes an answer for 37 that I cannot find in Chambers but which fits the wordplay (all the letters are checked anyway). I have a message from one thematic clue which tells me something I discovered for myself so didn't need to be told; I have another message which gives me no help whatsoever in filling in the central row; I have a third hidden message, the totality of which makes little sense but the first part of which led me in a moment of inspiration to arrive at a likely entry to write under the grid. The last 4 words of this third message merely repeat an instruction that had been already followed. Google then confirmed what I suspected might be the entry for the central row.

So I have a completed grid (hopefully with a valid but unconfirmed answer at 37) and the theme, but I don't think I've got there through a particularly logical process, just intuition. Perhaps that's the thematic point

[dead-eye]

scorpius,37d comes under the second word in the BRB.

[perseverer]

The answer to 37D is in 2011 BRB towards end of the first entry for second word.

[borealis]

Fun! I wonder if it would be possible to write one with lots of inter-referencing thematic clues like the three here? I suspect the pdms here are likely to come in a different order for many of us, and although I followed a similar process to Scorpius I was reassured by the checking that gave me. Thanks, Ilver.

[Arcticpenguin]

All finished but with a nagging doubt at the back of my mind. I spent longer on Ilfer's "Child's Play" in December's Magpie than any other crossword that I've ever finished. Is there a "clupea rufa" in there somewhere ? And there's a B in an ominous position (not the Russians again surely). Hmm.

[aldanna]

Thank you to all who have sent me advice about BRB/Bradfords on various devices. As I have at present nothing in the smartphone/ipad/kindle/etc cupboard, I am a little overwhelmed but am still thinking.

[Scorpius]

Thanks to dead-eye and perseverer for pointing me in the right direction to confirm 37. I'd actually thought the expression might be French and that the first word would appear differently in the BRB.

[sunny-dave]

Well ...

... I have a full grid, am sure that my unclued entry is correct and can justify my choice of theme from the assorted 'messages' ...

... but I still have a vague feeling that I have missed something, somewhere.

Time to switch the brain off & watch the Rugby, I think.

[tilbee]

I found this a delight. Away for the weekend so grateful for one I could tackle last night with no access to BRB (just middle letter of 6d to check on my return. Much easier than anticipated after recalling the recent Child's Play in Magpie. Thanks to Ilver

[freiheid]

Struggling with 7d at the moment - only one unchecked letter which seems to permit two possibilities, but neither makes sense for the clue, as far as I can work out. What am I missing?

[BlackHugh]

Freiheid - I had difficulties also with 7D until I realised I had put in a plausible(ish) but wrong answer to 17A.

[magichour]

A favourite theme for me. Like others, had a feeling I was missing something. But it was a fun and fairly gentle romp. Thanks to Ilver.