Listener No 4327 The Alcoholic Baseball Player By Waterloo

[trux]

Hoho!! Cracker-style literary jokes from Mr Waterloo ... some suitably making one groan, others raising a broad smile: I particularly liked 40ac. Gentle romp. Happy New Year to all ABers and many thanks to Waterloo.

[jim360]

My mum laughed out loud when I read out 33ac. Many of them I can't say I quite get, but at least this week there's no real ambiguity to worry about. Roll on 2015, then, and thanks Waterloo for getting the ball rolling.

[starwalker]

Wonderful, knockabout stuff. Cracker jokes and pantomime (he's behind you, oh no he isn't) material. Thanks Waterloo, for a great start to the year.

[upsetter]

After the Lord Mayor's show...

[olichant]

This made me very happy indeed! Happy 2015 to everyone.

[sunny-dave]

Well that was fun ... thanks Waterloo

[AndrewG-S]

Not my cup of tea, but my wife really enjoyed it and usually hates the listener.

[AHearer]

I wasn't able to start this until this morning, but found it great fun. An alternative title might have been "I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue", as there's often a round with a similar basis in that programme. I'm sure that 40ac featured there -- possibly 22ac too. Many thanks, Waterloo.

[Zabadak]

I might just start doing Listeners again after this one: lots of cracking puns and much hilarity along the way. The one I don't yet "get" is 38 - I have the real word (can't be anything else) but not the title, and it's going to bug me all day, or until the penny drops. Happy New Year to all.

[upsetter]

To Zabadak - there is a book by Richard Hoggart that might be the source of the malapropism.

[s_pugh]

Amazed at the plaudits here, as I find it ambiguous as there is no way at all of cross checking what Mrs M guessed at and reconciling that to the grid entries. Sorry Waterloo but I find this lame and wholly unconvincing. Let’s hope this is the nadir of 2015.

[upsetter]

Agreed S_Pugh. Of course we should always recognise our debt to the setters, but damning by faint praise is damning nonetheless.
Waterloo has done much better than this.

[sunny-dave]

I agree that you don't have to have worked out all of the Malapropisms (although without them some of the the grid entries would be a bit of a guess) - but I've got a full set that I could defend quite well.

Perhaps the absolute rigour of proving that you've dotted every i and crossed every t is missing - but the puzzle raised a good few smiles here, which is no bad thing on a dreary 'post festive' weekend?

[BobHWW]

Definitely a 'Marmite' puzzle and I fear that I am in the underwhelmed camp. Nevertheless a nice gentle start to the year and one or two clues to smile at. I liked 4d once I saw the wordplay. Thanks Waterloo and HNY to one and all.

[aldanna]

Pleasingly silly, I felt. Still struggling with the tweeds and worsteds, but pretty well there apart from that.

[pushmi-pullyu]

One more malapropism to discover, but finding it all very enjoyable. Gave up on last week's after reading everyone's comments, so nice to have something doable to kick off the new year. 33 ac is my favourite as well as the first one I solved.

[Zabadak]

My thanks to upsetter. I think that must be right - you can certainly make the numbers tally - though by comparison to all the other thematic items, it's a bit less mainstream!

[jockie]

Like aldanna I can't figure out 9A, so I don't think I can qualify for saying this isn't up to L standards. But if I had 9A I certainly would. Fun, yes, Listener, no. Sorry Waterloo.

[jim360]

Surely by default of its appearing in the Listener series it's "up to Listener standards". Or at least the editors seemed to think so. Possibly his being a long-time setter helps bias things his way, but all the same. I thought it was fun, and certainly it's not often my Mum can enjoy the solving process alongside. I had to back-solve most of the titles from the forced, or almost-forced, entries, which is perhaps not what was intended, but all the same it got the new year off to a gentle start. And after the ongoing nightmare of working out what Sabre wanted to go in the middle column, I could do with that thank you.

[emcee]

Not my cup of tea, but can appreciate why many liked it.

I still have 38 to understand but, fortunately, the entry has only one possibility.

HNY to one and all.

[turast]

The real word in 9Ac is included in the title of a trilogy which is a quotation from Milton.