Listener No 4372: Seldom Seen By Piccadilly

[AHearer]

Anything I say will set off yet another argument about easy and hard Listeners, so I'll leave it at thanking Piccadilly for a brief spell of entertainment.

[starwalker]

Yes indeed. It would seem churlish, but 25a says it all.

[tnap]

With a busy weekend in store, I was happy to have something straightforward this week. But, by Listener standards, that was verging on the trivial.

[Flocker14]

A PB for me - probably for others too. It was still fun though.

[Contrarian]

As Alekhine used to say, zzzzzzz.

[jim360]

I suspect most people would have noticed 25ac. A little light entertainment, leaving the weekend free for...well, other stuff I suppose.

[kayakamina]

I don't think many Listener solvers would argue that this was on the
easy side.

It's no bad thing & thanks to Piccadilly for a fun puzzle.

[upsetter]

Having cantered complacently towards the Friday Club, we have no idea how to comply with the third sentence of the preamble, even though we are in no doubt as to what the words is.

[Cagey]

I enjoyed this one. A nice simple idea. Diverting, which is all I want in a puzzle. Now to return to the double Ds of this months magpie, which have not tried yet. Thank you Piccadilly

[rhona121]

I couldn't be bothered to hunt for the extra letters once the nature of the replacements became obvious.

[Ruthrobin]

Is a setter occasionally allowed to snarl? Snarl, snarl! No, I am not Piccadilly but if I were and had put those many hours into a polished puzzle, I would be saddened by the dismissive comments and by people who couldn't be bothered to go right to the end of the letter search and so on. Of course, there will be 500 other solvers who are not in the Answerbank Friday Club who will love this clever puzzle and, indeed there are the Magpie, the EV, the IQ and, of course the Crossword Centre monthly (smile) if you are suffering from crossword deprivation. Thanks to Piccadilly.

[Philoctetes]

I liked the treatment of the subject (though if I can finish on a Friday this cannot be counted as taxing). The puzzle is well constructed, and unambiguous. My one anxiety is that I did not actually have to solve all the thematic clues one I had enough extra letters to give a meaningful anagram

[AndrewG-S]

As a factual comment (not a criticism) there is no doubt that the grid fill was at the quicker end of the spectrum. I am certainly not the speediest solver and it took me about an hour, interspersed with a few glasses and red and the obligatory Friday night curry. The extra letters took a bit more head scratching and were more of a challenge. Completing this and so complying with the third sentence is clearly necessary in order to ensure an accurate final grid. Thanks Piccadilly.

[crosswhit99]

Yes, a very pleasant Saturday morning workout, thanks Piccadilly. Given the nature of the replacements I guess it was always inevitable that not all of the thematic clues would need to be solved in order to suss the anagram, and though it may have been an easier ride for us this week, spare a thought for JEG ! Roll on the numbers !!

[Essira]

I would like to echo Ruthrobin's comments.

[upsetter]

RR, as you know, we have occasionally bleated about crosswords that we felt were substandard (eg last week), but this week we share your reaction to some of the comments.
Some of them tend to suggest that the puzzle is complete once the first two sentences of the preamble have been complied with.
As we said earlier, we have the 9 letter word derived from the extra letters, but wonder what the third sentence actually requires us to do.
We are used to being ignored by fellow posters, but would be interested to know what you have to say on this issue.

[aldanna]

I have to agree it was far from difficult, but it was an entertaining puzzle as far as I was concerned.

[olichant]

Upsetter, I don't ignore you - I may not reply to individual comments but always read them with interest, I promise! I found the last part of the preamble fairly clear, but don't want to give it away - but happy to discuss (olichant08 at gmail dot com).

[Zabadak]

sure, yes, easy, but people who can't be bothered to track down the extra letters might just be in for a bit of a shock.