Listener 4103: Annual Turnover by Ragtag

[midazolam]

Fairly straightforward debut by Ragtag this week. The basics of the theme we have seen in a listener a couple of years back as well as in the EV. I was wondering what the clashes had to do with it, but it's all confirmed in Chambers. I am surprised this aspect of the puzzle has not come up before.

[Ruthrobin]

Bobby Collins, you should see the facilities in Switzerland. My sons lived in what I would consider luxury in Cambridge colleges and houses, but when they went to EPFL (Lausanne) for research exchanges, the accommodation was palatial in comparison and the facilities out of this world. They were used to sharing department computers and using neolithic machinery for materials research, but Switzerland provided one state of the art computing system per student and all the machinery they requested. It was the same for one of them in the Max Planck institute in Stuttgart for one of them, too.

[pushmi-pullyu]

I've got 28 ac and have grasped its relevance to the grid, and I've got the hint from the extra letters and can see its relevance to the clashing letters, but what I can't see is any connection between them. Perhaps I don't need to as the grid is filled, but I don't like sending off a puzzle unless I can understand all of it.

[Zabadak]

Pushmi - read the definition of 28ac and its derivation, and consider one of the many alternative names for the hint and the clashes. I didn't get it straight away either - quite a nice d'oh moment!

[Clamzy]

I also got only 10 of the hints and a couple of those were wrong. However the last four (correct) letters gave me the PDM and avoided a whole Sunday staring at a completed grid as with other puzzles this year.
My thanks to Ragtag and I hope it will not be another 13 years before the next one:-)

[Clamzy]

I think that should be 23 years.

[Scorpius]

I'm amazed people have found this so straightforward. I seem to be doing a different puzzle. I have over 40 clashes, not 7, and with with 2 and 24 still to solve no doubt there will be some more. The only way I could get a word for 28 was by assuming there are 2 clashes there also, which strikes me as a bit unfair. I'm pretty sure the word I have is correct because I can see how it relates to features in the grid , to the title and to what's revealed by the extra letters, but I'd have been happier if the preamble had prepared me for all this.

[contendo]

Scorpius - You're right that there are two clashes in 28, but if you've got over 40 clashes elsewhere that suggests that you haven't applied the meaning of 28 to the grid.

[pushmi-pullyu]

Thank you Zabadak! The moral here for me is always to read the complete definition.

[Scorpius]

Thanks contendo. When I went back to it I did figure out how to resolve the extra clashes. I'm not keen on those clues where it's unclear whether there's an extra letter or not, such as 4 down and 41 down (where I don't think the indefinite article is justified).

[cluelessJoe]

Yes Scorpius, I did not like some of the extra letter clues - I get narked with ambiguities and also use of short 2 letter words just to generate the extra one.
As for your off-topic Bobbycollins, I do reckon the current generation fare comparatively well - my finals year was spent sharing a farmhouse accessible only by trekking across a Devon field. We even had to hand-pump our own water for the first term. On the plus side, it cost £2 per week, so did not take too big a slice of the £100 or so per term grant (which, supplemented by 2 long summers of brewery work at 7/3d per hour and sale of half my record collection meant I graduated debt free). No regrets, I would still not have traded.

[tweaker]

Completed puzzle. I have a few complaints though. I agree with (the ones) who are thinking the same as me about the clueing/misprints. It put me off track a little, but I stuck in there and finished it even without a 100% understanding.

[flocker]

I can't unravel the clashes - I've got 2 0r 3 too many - I know what they want but I've got 3 possible clashes in 35 ac which seems to be a fairly simple clue

[Zabadak]

flocker: 35ac is as simple as it looks: have you checked which row it's in?

[teuchter2]

I'm at the stage of having completed all the grid apart from 28ac, but as I have seven clashes I was assuming there weren't any in that word or is it a phrase? I can't make head or tail of it at the moment and my extra letters in the wordplay don't start off very promisingly either. Help. It's as bad as being 3-0 down after 8 minutes!

[AndrewG-S]

Teuchter 2, as indicated above there are clashes in 28ac, so you may need to revisit. Word wizard helps on both 28a and hint resulting from the 12 extra letters

[catstail]

Got about 10 answers yesterday. Am just off to have another bash.
off-topic - do you think student loans are relevant? When I was at college we could not rent expensive accommodation as loans were not available.

[teuchter2]

I've got it now. I realised I had got 11a wrong. When I went to university the grant covered everything, so I started my career with no debt. I know that this would be impossible these days given the far greater percentage of the school population going on to university, but I still feel that today's students have quite a raw deal.

[trux]

Late start this weekend as only just back from England tonite and not so easy doing these on planes, unlike the EV.... getting there, but not all done yet ... still too many clashes even after discovering the theme at 28A and acting appropriately ... and I only have 9 of the extra letters, or possibly 10 if someone would be kind enough to tell me whether 21A has one as I can work it either way, depending on whether the author is specific or generic .... I think probably not as it leads my idea of the hint astray ... ho, hum ... more to do tomorrow, methinks

[Cruncher]

I spotted the theme fairly quickly. I think it has been used in the last couple of years, at least for part of a puzzle, and I have toyed with constructing a puzzle myself using a variant of it. Took me a little while to tumble to the clashes as I was googling a two-word name which lead me to some rather obscure and deeply naff poetry. Didn't think to look in Chambers..!

[Ruthrobin]

I wonder whether anyone is asking themselves what form the 'appropriate symbol' that is replacing the seven letters in the 'thematically placed cells' should take. I gather that the official formal representation of such an item is not the same as what, for example, a child might draw. Might the 'childish version' be rejected?