Listener 4312: Elementary Deduction By Rood

[AHearer]

After a day when my mind has been destroyed by builders, a pick through a water pipe, and trying to find a plumber at 4pm on a Friday, I little thought I'd be the first to check in. A very fair and entertaining offering by Rood, for which many thanks.

[TheBear69]

Congrats to Rood for a superb offering. Absolutely first rate construction - not sure how he did it! THe resolution of the crossing entries was ingenious!

[Ruthrobin]

Yes, fabulous construction. What a gem. Thanks Rood.

[sunny-dave]

Well I thought that was great - hard, but ultimately very satisfying.

Everything tied up ever so neatly - even if the supposedly helpful "two-word phrase" only revealed itself after I'd followed the instruction.

Thanks Rood.

Dave

[jim360]

Straight in at number one in POTY contention, surely? Unbelievably brilliant, all the way through the puzzle.

I just recently read a blog about a Magpie puzzle last year by Rood, which was also brilliant, starting "Puzzles that stem from the setting partnership that is Rood occur out of desperation"... more desperation please, if it produces gems like this!

There's one nagging doubt, at 24a that I can't parse and has two plausible entries. Hope I can sort that one out soon...

[sunny-dave]

I was wobbling on 24a for a while but now have a completely parsable answer.

email if desperate

D

[trux]

Stunning grid construction and clever endgame make this (for me) one of the best puzzles of the year so far. I found the clues quite tricksy to unravel and theme is not one of my strong points, but was utterly wowed by the way the whole thing was put together. Many thanks to Rood.

[perseverer]

This should satisfy those who have been complaining about easy puzzles, with a number of difficult clues and wordplays, and an end-game where you really have to have all your wits about you, right to the very end. And it did help a little eventually that the theme was my work for thirty odd years!

[lyrabelacqua]

More penny drops than an old fashioned sweetshop. Tough but fair. Beautiful.

[AndrewG-S]

Fabulous puzzle and a familiar theme. Still not totally happy on 24a, but hopefully posting here will resolve that final issue. Thanks rood.

[AndrewG-S]

I knew posting would help. All done now.

[upsetter]

Very very hard. Well worth persevering.

[olichant]

Just brilliant. Thanks, Rood.

[miqq]

I'm glad others are finding this hard - it makes me feel less feeble at my attempts to climb the steep learning curve. This is where we beginners find things hard, I imagine - the grid fill, although taking a lot of care, is done, the message discovered, but the clash-resolving, the hidden 2-word phrase remain opaque. And having worked out the instruction, and carried it out, it seems not to lead to anything meaningful. A gentle hint would be welcome to [email protected]

[tilbee]

Agreed that this had some very tough clues. Also need to very careful in correctly determining the end game. Certainly one of the toughest of the year to date. Thanks to Rood for another excellent puzzle.

[jockie]

This must be some kind of record - 2220 on Monday and only 15 posts. What a corker, Rood! AGC looms.

[Cruncher]

Bringing up the rear here and still some way to go. Full grid and instructions understood but feel that my abysmal performance at O level in the specialist subject might prove a barrier in realising the final design. Back to Wikipedia

[Cruncher]

aah - penny waterfall. Now if this subject had been taught like that in my teens my O levels could have been a quite different story.

[Scorpius]

Despite the puzzle's complexity, thought-provoking endgame and a grid that must have presented enormous constructional difficulties, I wouldn't consider it a contender for POTY. A weakness for me was the number of clues that could be parsed to yield a variety of elementary deductions, often making parts of the message difficult to ascertain. In the case of 39d, the clue provides the answer without any deduction, which is a practice to be avoided in my view.

One thing that has puzzled me is the third word of the warning (the 8-letter word). It doesn't seem to be the appropriate word, unless solvers are expected to do something I haven't even thought of. Is anyone else puzzled by it?

[Philoctetes]

Utterly stumped here. I guess we are in "Maxwell's Demon" territory here - if you do not know something exists, there is nothing in the puzzle to lead you in the right direction. And why does this always occur on this side of the divide? Should we expect a puzzle based on the tribute lists of the Delian League - basic o-level stuff.

[emcee]

Late starter and (very) late finisher here.

I enjoyed the puzzle immensely and thought the title of the puzzle was very clever.

Some tough clues -- 31ac was the last one that I struggled to understand. As has been said earlier, a weakness was there were some clues which, when parsed in a certain way, gave the correct answer but yielded the wrong extra letters.

Hell of a construction though and a brilliant piece of work.

Many thanks, Rood, for a 'workout squared'.