Listener 4026: Elitism by Zero

[midazolam]

A fine crossword from Zero as always. The grid filled fairly quickly but the thematic material is excellent.

As usual the grid and clues have been forwarded on. If anyone else would like a copy: [email protected]


Don't forget Mother's Day tomorrow!

[jamesah]

Finished it now after the above hint for which many thanks but I have no idea what the missing words are supposed to signify or what to do with them. Not that it seems to matter for the purpose of solving the puzzle (which is a flaw perhaps in an otherwise brilliant puzzle?) but it would be nice to know what the relevance of these words is.

[jamesah]

Ignore previous post! I've at last seen the connection. Great stuff!

[Mysterons]

.. a flash of inspiration perhaps ?

[Philoctetes]

Actually, Jamesah, I liked the use of "a brilliant puzzle" - shows your mind was ticking away in the background.

[jamesah]

Rather slow for the inspiration to reach the foreground unfortunately!

[Cruncher]

Rather slower than you lot on this one - but distracted by other things over the weekend. Whilst I could pick an obvious phrase out of the 21 letters early on, it took me ages to figure how to disappear the redundant letters, and meanwhile became very distracted by 17dn and the first 3 letters of the top left diagonal - anyone else spot that - and wondered whether there was a sub-elitist element as well. I'm afraid I had to Google the second 4-word phrase to discover its relevance. But yes - many nice PDMs.

As to statistics - I don't think that they are normally posted until after the famous Dinner, which is this weekend I think. So presumably there'll be an invitation to mail your SAEs in the next couple of weeks.

[scooterbug]

Any helpful hints regarding 2d? I'm having a terrible time with it. Many thanks in advance!

[perseverer]

First word is the definition - do exactly what it says with the next three.

[Mysterons]

... and you will need Chambers 2008 for this definition (think NZ)

[scooterbug]

Got it at last. And I believe I can justify the wordplay. I don't remember seeing the "in decreasing quantities" trick before, but I suppose it's perfectly fair. Nice puzzle.

Thanks for the nudges!

[Roundhillbob]

Thanks for the discussion.
Finally cracked it and posted it; but it did take some time working out the redistribution and the basis of it.
Haven't yet made sense of the second phrase or identified the link, but it is clearly right.
Off to tackle Command Performance