Listener 4110: Contractions by Hubris

[Zabadak]

What a delightful piece of work, on a theme that I've been playing around with myself and which I will now have to shelve. Some of the thematics led to a lot of head scratching on the grounds that I knew they had to be but couldn't see how (with one exception that turned out to be a straight clue).
Not a bad curtain call: may Hubris' supply of celestial Listeners never run dry.

[BlackHugh]

I've just found the last thematic (the shortest one) - but sadly I did have a credible "normal" (i.e with wordplay) explanation for that one. Had to go through the clues to find it.

[JackDeCrow]

Happily the light finally dawned this afternoon. Hopefully it won't give too much away to say that after finding the first few I was convinced that the theme was "over and out" - which, as previously observed, would have been poignant to say the least!

[Ruthrobin]

Mine seems to have the time I posted it correctly underneath - it took us a couple of hours at the same time as cooking supper and so on - far less than usual, so perhaps you really did perform a Mark Goodliffe type of miracle Zabadak!

[Clamzy]

I once did a Times crossword which Mr Goodliffe had done in 11 minutes, and it took me the whole of my flight to Los Angeles, about 11 hours. Is this a record?

[bellabee]

i enjoyed this one too, thank you hubris and rip. however i have one niggling entry and no-one else seems to have mentioned this - which is even more worrying. i can justify one thematic entry with links to sport by way of a three word entry in chambers
- the third word being the 'active' ingredient. the problem is if i drop this word altogether the other two words are perfectly adequate in making a normal cryptic clue. occam's razor would certainly cut this third word out. i don't have any other problems, everything else ties in perfectly. i really hope i haven't given anything away this week and that someone might give me a nudge in the same spirit.

[bellabee]

nobody? i will be a tiny bit more explicit then. the first two words of the three word entry in chambers once reversed would give the cryptic part of the clue - ie these two words equal the one word answer that is defined just like a normal cryptic clue...and there i will leave it......

[Clamzy]

Bellabee It's not that you're being ignored it's just that I can't find one of my twelve thematic words linking to a sport. Can we continue offline?

[mintyman99]

I believe I understand bellabee's reference. But I don't think that one is thematic. But then I have only identified ten. I thought 4d a cracking clue.

[Ruthrobin]

Like Mintyman, I couldn't identify the sporty one. The only likely culprit certainly has an unnecessary word in the clue, but I felt that was deliberatley there to confound the solvers - to avoid being, too obviously, one of the 'contractions'.

[Paula]

Hi all
Went away last week & newsagent saved Sunday instead of Saturday Times. Could anyone suggest where I can find Listener 4109?
Thanks
Paula - [email protected]

[Paula]

thank you dr b

[bellabee]

thank you all and thanks for the offer clamzy but as i submit the solutions i don't think i should go directly for answers. having re-read the preamble i realise my 12th must be wrong as my answer involves three words and the preamble clearly states word singular.i think hubris did a fine job here and i apologise for suggesting a hint of unfairness - agree totally with 3 down, my favourite too. i've been considering highlighting another possibility as a pure gamble - and i may do so yet - but now i've seen that there may be symmetry here and it's very very tempting even though it has me looking at three words in the opposite quarter of the grid which i'm 100% certain they are normal cryptic clues..... aargh

[bellabee]

that should be 4 down of course - going to pieces here.

[bellabee]

...and that was another piece of misdirection. so looked at every clue again regardless and there it was! ingenious and thoroughly deceptive [and very fair] don't know how so many of you cracked it so quickly - not so gullible obviously....now where is the tippex.

[silversolver]

I agree that there were some excellent clues - I also enjoyed 5 down (and 35 ac). I also received an ironic comment from Mrs silversolver when she glanced over my shoulder and saw my answer to 5 ac!

[mullingar]

Well done everybody.I'm struggling with 31 down (no idea)and 35 across for which I have an answer which satisfies half the clue and no inkling of the contraction. Though I have a fairly obvious answer for 4 down I fail to see it's special quality. Is the last part of the solution the part which sounds like a bell? I've found only seven contractions of two types and can't understand the extra word in the clue for 9 down.I hope this hasn't been too explicit.I clearly need to find the third contraction and am disappointed to find that it is not 'over'

[mullingar]

Ok now I believe I have an answer which I understand to 35ac which leaves me with an answer which I don't fully understand to 31 down(I can see half of it). I also have a new contraction. This I recalculate now leaves me with 4 contractions unless the contraction at 35ac is the same as the one at 36ac. (i have different ones at the moment) I also have an extra and apparently unnecesary word in the clue for 32ac as well as 9 down as mentioned in my last post Am I on the right lines?

[contendo]

Silversolver - if you enjoyed 5dn you've got me worried! Do you mean 3 dn? All those of you who are struggling, think of moving individual letters around and the prepositions you would use to do so. I thought this was a beautiful crossword, and not as difficult as this week's EV which still has me struggling at the final hurdle.

[bobbycollins]

It's a funny old game, contendo. I breezed through EV but came to a dead halt with this on Sunday with four missing entries. The trail is probably too cold to go back to it now. So glad that I don't have the pressure of submitting!

S-matrix, hope 20 across isn't me!!

mullingar - the BRB clarifies 9 down