Listener No 4435: The Harmony Of Ratios By Ifor

[AHearer]

I was lucky with getting the theme fairly quickly (I suppose I've been indoctrinated over the past week or so), but even without that the clues needing two letters cast out would not have been too difficult. The four-letter entries were trickier -- perhaps because a lot of the thematic items would not feature in my list. I liked the final highlighting. Thanks, Ifor.

[IainGrace]

Entertaining and well structured but, for us, the rubric completely gave the theme away on an initial reading.

[AHearer]

I see what you mean. I'm slightly pleased that I stuck to my plan of giving the rubric a quick read before tackling the puzzle and only going back to it if I hit problems (not that that helped me near Ampthill!).

[Ruthrobin]

I can't pretend that the preamble gave anything away to me. This was a difficult solve for us but of Ifor's usual high quality and intricate cluing. Many thanks to Ifor.

[perseverer]

For once I would agree the wording of the preamble could have been of less help. An interesting and eclectic choice of thematic items.

[Hagen]

I think this is the first Listener I've ever done in 30 years where I've guessed the theme right before even starting, but that didn't make it any easier. Seems like extra letters in clues is the new rock'n'roll - and it made for a hard solve. At least I had a good idea of what one of the extras would be in each case, which helped.

As A Hearer says, the four-letter entries were tricky, especially 2 across. I spent ages on this and although I should have seen the wordplay sooner I'm not at all convinced by the definition. 18 across was quite easy by contrast but - purely as a matter of taste - I don't consider the removed item thematic!

Haven't got the highlighting yet, so I'll have another look tomorrow. I'm reassured by the posts so far that this isn't like the highlighting in The Puzzle I've Promised Not To Mention...

[sunny-dave]

Very tricky grid in parts - especially the 4 letter answers - but ultimately very satisfying as it all came together nicely.

Like AHearer, I tend not to over analyse any rubric - it usually seems to do more harm than good. I can (retrospectively) see that the hints in this one are a bit less cryptic than usual - but not excessively so I think.

Thanks Ifor - a couple of hours of pleasure on a cold and horrible evening

[Hagen]

DUH... I had the wrong differing letter in the double definition clue. I think my answer was valid (ish) and wonder if anyone else will do this? Probably not.

Very nice puzzle. Thanks Ifor.

[Scorpius]

I certainly didn't see the theme coming, but I generally give preambles a cursory glance to get the salient points, then get on with solving clues. All finished pretty quickly apart from 2a and 2d. Rather oddly I have an answer to 2d that fits the wordplay perfectly, but there is no thematic word that can be removed to leave a real word fitting the letters I have in the grid.

A very enjoyable puzzle. It was nice to have a grid where the distribution of unchecked letters was perfectly Ximenean.

[BobMinor]

Like Hagen, I was held up for a while by having a pair of answers for the double definition clue which, although perfectly valid in terms of the clue, were not the pair which was required. All sorted now, though, and I think this was another very fine puzzle to add to the list of excellent Listeners at the start of 2017.

[upsetter]

good puzzle - disappointingly few posters.

[Whenland]

Struggling here.

[HappyUncle]

Hello Upsetter: here's another one to boost the numbers.

I'm not surprised to find that others shared my (short-lived) uncertainty about the double-def clue. What does surprise me is the faint praise from some quarters for a puzzle that had multiple enjoyable PDMs and was a fine example of wit (title and highlighting), ingenuity (getting all the bits to fit together), style (Scorpius has already commended the grid) and misdirection (I wonder what will be the ratio of harmonious to unharmonious submissions).

A fine achievement from Ifor.

[icynorth]

I was held up by a perfect alternative for 24A, which was annoying, and I don't really get the point of the obfuscation with the hidden message, but a fine achievement, I agree. Thanks Ivor!

[olichant]

Really enjoyed this, but some of the wordplays took me ages to unravel for some reason - I found it a much tougher solve than you guys seem to have done.