Listener Crossword 4017 - A Knotty Problem

[Apache4D]

Thought I would be exceptionally rude and post the link to the latest Listener that I have been waiting for all week!!

This is my first year of attempting the Listener crosswords and have managed to complete the first two offerings which seem to be of an easier standard. As for 4017, I can't even unravel the pre-amble so not sure how I'm going to fair. Good luck to All!


http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/art s_and_entertainment/games_and_puzzles/article5 521975.ece

[cruciverbali]

Thanks for that link apache - great to see your keenness to tackle the latest Listener - hope you have a successful year and welcome to the gang !

[Mamyalynne]

well I take my hat off to anyone who even attempts that it looks totally bamboozling am a lowly GK and trivia type myself

[cluelessJoe]

Thanks for that Apache - welcome aboard (for a doubtless bumpy ride!) and good luck.

[midazolam]

Thanks Apache4D - will tackle this tonight after work

I very much liked Homer's "nine of diamonds" listener last year. Let's hope we don't get in a knot with this one

[4winds]

This is not so much an answer as a question.

Have never attempted Spectator - don't take Times regularly but, after having followed(?) your link and read the preamble, I am thinking that this rigmarole by "HOMER" sounds very like the outpourings of "MYOPS" who compiles "The Wee Stinker" weekly,and some of the festive season's Giant Prize Crosswords annually.

Does anyone, who knows the work of both compilers, agree? ( Add the fact that Homer was blind, that myopia refers to short-sightedness and compiler MYOPS is a Classics Master.)

I am a fairly amateur cruciverbalist and an EXTREMELY amateur computerist ( or whatever the term is!!)

[4winds]

Sorry! I forgot to say MYOPS compiles for The Glasgow .Herald

[perseverer]

Apache4D, not sure if you are suggesting the two are the same person, but MYOPS is John McKie, who is a retired Classics teacher from Hutcheson's Grammar in Glasgow. According to the Listener site, Homer's name is I Simpson, which shows a certain logic. I've been doing, and enjoying, Myops puzzles for years, but I would suggest his style of cryptic would not meet the requirements of the Listener editors, or solvers.

[kayakamina]

Thanks for the link apache.

A warm welcome to a new member - good luck.

[4winds]

Thank you ,perseverer,for your information.
As I said, I am a not-very- experienced participant in the crossword-solving business, but was intrigued by the "posting"(?) of Apache4D, followed his "thread"(?) and my first impression was that, yes, the compilers were the same person.
Sorry, if I have offended any one!
P.S. I assume you were addressing me, i.e. 4winds, not Apache4D?

[perseverer]

4winds - apologies to yourself (and Apache4d) for mixing up your names. I'm sure you haven't offended anyone. Now back to the puzzle.

[bobbycollins]

A warm welcome from me, too, Apache4D.

Perseverer, after my initial run through the clues, I think that I am going to have to live up to your name! Not even going to attempt to make sense of the preamble at this early stage.

Good luck to all.

[Apache4D]

Thanks to all for your warm welcome it is much appreciated, have enjoyed the opening to the year of both the Listener and Enigmatic Variations, and expected i'd hit a brick wall soon.......however, i'm now sat down with several copies of the grid, a huge red book, a cold beer and hopefully a long, enfuriating, intriguing, and enjoyable night of solving ahead!!!

Thanks again to everyone, and happy solving! :)

[AHearer]

Many thanks for the link. This one looks a bit more challenging than the first two this year, in that it's probably going to be hard to get ahead by a lucky guess and filling the grid properly is going to be an essential stage.

[Apache4D]

Alas to bed with only 6 grid entries entered (clues without amendment), and 3 of the clues to be amended before entry solved but not enetered as I haven't worked out the theme yet.

Oh dear!!

[AHearer]

With perseverance it does all fall very neatly and precisely into place. My very elderly (1963) Brewers does not mention those particular helpers -- web to the rescue again!

[castro221]

Agreed, AHearer - it all went a bit more steadily than I feared. Some of the clues took a bit of thinking about, but there were some beauties.
Re Brewer: not everyone knows that a local library card will usually get you online access from home (log onto the council's own website) to a wide variety of titles. In the case of Brewer this is via a site called "credo". You also get DNB, Who's Who (and Who was Who), etc. If my (very mean) council subscribes, I expect they all do!

[mad max]

many thanks for link ( although still working on last weeks )

[midazolam]

I see the colouring part is a lot more explicit in the preamble than last year.

Nice theme with some tough clues, several where the definition is part of the wordplay. However, I did not see the point of 10D

This link does not give them either AHearer

[castro221]

I agree with midazolam about 10d - it just seems to be a weak (and aesthetically flawed) "&lit" - unless I am missing something. I liked 26 though.

[Walterloo]

I'm enjoying this one, too, but at the moment I would sell my soul to get 2dn. Unless I'm being very thick I cannot solve it satisfactorily. I have two choices of the answer, both beginning with the same two letters but differing on the third and cannot fit the wordplay to either. My theory is that the wordplay alludes to an * * * DISH, but can't see this in any dictionary. Help!