Listener Crossword No 4301 It's Over Here! By Jago

[trux]

Have just taken up my £1 special offer for first month of my Times subscription, and do hope I shall get better value for money in the coming weeks. I regret to say that this is just not up to Listener standard. Apologies to Jago for being so blunt, but seriously ...

[JCVW1]

A rare visit to the Friday Club for me, partly as I sometimes don't start until midweek. Yes, very easy, and obviously by design. The single penny dropped for me when considering what 42a might be.
I think this is my record-speed solve also, my previous fastest being "Fruitful Recipe" by Dipper (2012), I think.
I don't mind these occasional easier ones; they help if one has a bit of a backlog of the more difficult variety, and presumably encourage the odd new solver. I do, however, hope that the editors are not going to flood us with too many of this level of difficulty, and that we can perhaps maintain the status quo.
I should also say thanks to Jago for a fun puzzle.

[rhona121]

Record solve of a predictable theme in under half an hour. Some extra endgame would have been fun. I seem to remember a puzzle on the same theme some years ago that required appropriate shading of cells. Perhaps too tricky to engineer this on a grid of this size and shape.

[jabone]

Disappointing. I really don't want a Listener that I can complete nearly as quickly as it takes to write in the answers. Perhaps a more veiled title would have delayed things.

[EAChaplin]

I understand the Listener editors have a huge backlog of accepted puzzles, sometimes leading to a delay of 2 years before publication. Jago obviously knows how to jump the queue:-)

[Cruncher]

Pleasant stuff but it was a pity that the theme was so obvious allowing a major gridfill early on

[Graejen]

My first post as it's my first finish in under 30 minutes without consulting any references and I'm inordinately proud of myself. Though I do appreciate that just about everyone else here has done the same! As I don't start the crossword till the paper comes on Saturday (so will never qualify for the Friday club), is there a Saturday morning club I could join?

[Philoctetes]

Compare this with the trip down the Thames from a few weeks back to see what could have been :(

[AHearer]

I haven't renewed my on-line subscription, so had to wait for the lad on the bike to wobble unsteadily up the drive (no further comment), and it really wasn't worth the wait. Sorry, Jago, but this really wasn't a Listener crossword -- and not only because so much of the grid could be filled from a straightforward interpretation of the title. There weren't any really challenging clues.

[IainGrace]

Agree, Philoctetes. Off to buy an Independent to satisfy our need for a cryptic challenge this weekend.

[mathsman]

I am a newcomer to Listener crosswords and I expect to be stretched. This time I finished in 10 minutes - no boasting, just disappointment. Until I read this thread I thought that I had missed something.

[starwalker]

Coincidentally, today's Times prize crossword appears to be suffering from a similar malaise.

[jim360]

Well I suppose it was rather easy by normal standards but at least that's allowed a fw newcomers to have a go. Congratulations to krumb on completing it and hope the negative comments about this one aren't putting you off.

At least I have fewer crosswording distractions on a sporting weekend. And I am stuck on the train tomorrow afternoon.

[kayakamina]

There has been an ongoing spat between the crossword
editors of EV & IQ as to the difficulty of their puzzles. Both
have accepted that The Listener is the hardest but after this
offering from Jago I wonder if there is a re-think and the order
is-
1) Enigmatic variations
2) Listener
3) Inquisitor

[SethMould]

Hi! I founded the Mango crossword setting team. Would you please have a look at my website http://thelistener2015.weebly.com/ There is a forum where you might wish to discuss current Listeners.

[the_heisman]

I do tend to agree that this was the easiest Listener that I can remember. The Times has introduced a new form of cryptic crossword called quick cryptic which is an easier version of the main Times cryptic crossword. Perhaps the times editors might allow a little more space in order that a light version of the listener (such as this) could also be published?

[trux]

For those not fully satisfied this weekend, there are plenty of other options around: the IQ and EV, of course, but also I must give a plug to this month's Magpie which has five excellent word puzzles (of varying levels of difficulty, all beautifully constructed, and none of them excessively hard, not even the Pointer "D" grade). And the new CAM has just come out with a tough-looking Schadenfreude...

[s_pugh]

Luckily managed to get a copy of the Times as away, and was dreading what I would read on here considering it took me longer to set up the grid in a Word doc than it did to solve it. Can't really disagree with anything anyone has put, for me the clues were simply to easy and as soon as the theme was spotted (two answers in!) it was easy to guess the unclueds. Mind having got letters 2 and 3 of 10d I did wonder if 35d was going to be 'lout'! ;¬) Thanks for the effort Jago - at least I can get back to the fishes now.

[Bluearmy58]

Very kind of The Times to include a pull out section to confirm the blanks....

[Quizmonkey]

Pathetic - any puzzle you can toss off in 10 minutes is NOT a Listener. How was this ever accepted? Some of the clues are just infantile and sound like they've been pinched from The Sun. Not happy - IQ was so superior today.

[Staurologist]

And there was I, thinking it was a tour de force :>)

There have been at least three other relevant Listener puzzles, two on this theme and one with the obvious title but a different theme altogether.