Listener 3990

[cruciverbali]

This week's puzzle is I Know My Place by Syd Lexis

[Rapparee]

Thanks for the link, Cruciverbalist.

Just the ticket for yet another rainy Friday!

[cluelessJoe]

... and weekend! I'm sure when I was a kid we used to have proper weather (or maybe if you're a kid today, this is proper weather!)
Thanks C. as usual

[mad max]

many thanks C

[bobbycollins]

Spot on, cluelessJoe. We definitely had proper weather when I was a boy. Don't care what the stats say.

[cluelessJoe]

We had real footballers in those days too bobbycollins! My mum cried when you broke your leg in Turin, but you bounced back quickly enough to grace the pitch alongside King Billy & co. Those were the days - now we're in division three!

[lordbadger]

What are you all making of this one?
Feels like a rapid solve of mainly unexciting clues, followed by a long period of staring at the completed grid / preamble until something clicks! Which it hasn't yet :-(

[Rapparee]

The diagonals hold the key to the grid resolution. The double letters are particularly significant.

[Patch49]

Feeling very pleased at having solved this puzzle before lunch and without any hints!

[cluelessJoe]

.. think they're being a little kind to us this week - maybe bodes ill for next time around?

[bobbycollins]

Following a fairly routine grid fill I find myself stumped. Annoyed at myself since I have managed some real toughies over the last few weeks.

I have highlighted the omitted letters from the 20 clues and have a slightly asymmetrical (promising looking) pattern. I am firmly in the lordbadger camp.....the more I stare the less I see.

Chin up, cluelessJoe. Leeds will be back!

[cluelessJoe]

I just happened to recognise the pattern, otherwise don't know how I'd have got on. If it helps, I don't know where or when it originates, but I'm fairly sure I first encounterd it written my mother's (vintage late 1930's) autograph book - back in the days when people used to do more than just sign their names.

[Rapparee]

Say what you see, Bobby...

[bobbycollins]

Thanks, chaps

Just spent a v. productive lunch hour with the Times and tidying up 3990 (having been nudged along by the kindness of Rapparee and cluelessJoe). A cracking finish which brought a large smile to my face....and the asymmetry was deliberate!

[mad max]

having failed on the last three puzzles, it made a pleasant change for me to complete this one

[MLN:RUGBY]

I am another who has completed the puzzle, highlighted the letters concerned, stared at it on & off since sunday, but am still baffled! Any hint appreciated!

[gribble]

MLN in this CROSSwords the starting point is the third cell of 15a

[MLN:RUGBY]

GRIBBLE: thanks, but I'm still staring at it & nothing is jumping out at me, Yet!

[Rapparee]

Say what you see...!

[MLN:RUGBY]

RAPPAREE: Thanks, but I see nothing yet! I think I've been looking at it for too long & have gone brain-dead!
Think I need to hide it & try again another day!!

[Cruncher]

Following the hints wth vested interest as I still haven't sussed this one. I can make more or less make sense of the non-leading diagonal, but not the other one. And I don't see how the omitted letters from the clues fit in. Hmmm