Listener 4488

[Flocker14]

A fairly gentle workout after the rigours of the last weeks but highly enjoyable nonetheless. Steady progress by trial and error after the first grid entry leads to a neat endgame. Many thanks to Xanthippe!

[Hagen]

I can't think of a better choice of setter to follow the Elgin. Xanthippe is an old hand at this game and it's always a pleasure to solve his puzzles.

I usually find cartes blanches with clashes to be the cruciverbal equivalent of the north face of the Eiger, but Xanthippe made the ascent less daunting by providing a grid which offered a few "ins" as well as making the clues for the clashing entries clear and solvable. I still didn't find it easy, though!

A very neat endgame which didn't fall into place until the all the thematic material was uncovered. It hardly need be said that I opted initially for the wrong letters to resolve the clashes.

This has been a terrific year for the Listener so far, hasn't it?

[12barblues]

Very enjoyable, took a little long to get started as I couldn’t cold solve the longer clues but came together nicely with very neat treatment of the theme. Back to Elgin .....

[lyrabelacqua]

Yes, that was delightful, especially the final step. It is turning into a vintage year.

[Flocker14]

Xanthippe I apologise! It was only when I had another look at this this morning that I realised my initial judgement was premature. This is much cleverer than I at first thought and hats off!

[starwalker]

I thought that this was something of a curate's egg, until I realised the full depth of what was happening. Thanks Xanthippe - I will be slower to judgement next time.

[sunny-dave]

Very neat indeed - the construction is exemplary and the final resolution very satisfying - a good mix of relatively easy and quite impenetrable clues too.

I agree with previous posters - 2018 has been a very good year so far for Listenering.

Thanks Xanthippe

[olichant]

The last stage took me ages, but made me smile when it all clicked and came together. Really nice.

I don't quite understand the way the clues were laid out - I assume to help solvers get a foot into what would otherwise have been a much tougher grid-fill.

[Scorpius]

I found many clues fairly easy to solve cold, but it was a while before I was able to get a toe-hold in the grid, partly because I failed to cold-solve the three long answers, which would have been the most helpful.

I finished the grid in about three hours but must have spent almost as long staring at the grid for the quotation extract. All I have found so far is a phrase of three words that is from a source in the grid, but not the one that has a conjunction.

[emcee]

Very nice puzzle and an excellent construction. The endgame was very satisfying especially when I understood why there was no requirement to highlight the three word phrase (which at first seemed odd).

Many thanks, Xanthippe.

[contendo]

If the three-word phrase is taken as an instruction it makes rather a nonsense of the high-lighting.

[HappyUncle]

I think I've finished it now that I know the quotation and the significance of the reference to the completed grid in the preamble. Like others (assuming I haven't interpreted their comments wrongly as well) I made the wrong choice at first, thanks to a piece of cheeky misdirection by Xanthippe.

Interestingly, the allegedly missing conjunction is actually symmetrically present in the grid.

[icynorth]

I enjoyed the challenge, thanks Xanthippe, but I found the theme somewhat muddled. This probably means I’m missing something, but then again I’m not especially familiar with the sources.