Saturday Times The Listener 4473 - Hit And Run By Ifor Friday October 20Th 2017

[kdgs2]

Surprised again not to find anyone else here already. This was quite fiddly, and I still haven’t parsed all of the clues for the extra letters. I *think* I understand the second instruction, but quite unsure. I wasn’t aware of the theme before now - it’s quite impressive!

[Hagen]

I'm not surprised at all by the lack of posts - this was HARD! Two extra letters are much more difficult to tease out than one, especially when the clues are this tough and in a couple of cases there are alternative possibilities for the extra letters. It didn't help that answer lengths weren't given, and I can't see any reason for this other than to make the puzzle even harder. Thank goodness the endgame at least was quite simple and unambiguous.

A worthy challenge - thanks Ifor - but I'm glad the Listener isn't this tricky every week!

[12barblues]

Agreed, that required quite an effort, even after working out the messages about 1/2 way through the cold solve. Hagen sums up my thoughts exactly.

[Flocker14]

Yes - took a whole lot of teasing out. I have now got the two instructions (parsing all clues except two) and am trying to see exactly where the ambiguity lies

[AndrewG-S]

No surprise at the lack of posts but it all worked out in the end with no ambiguity. Many thanks ifor.

[Osirun]

Gah, I have the whole grid sorted (great puzzle, strong idea, tough but fair cluing) but I'm amazed to read that the endgame is "simple and unambiguous" - I can't see how the given instruction resolves the ambiguity at all! Hopefully if I stare at the penny hard enough it will drop...

[Flocker14]

Finally saw the light at the end of a very long tunnel! I'm glad, too, that they aren't all like that. Many thanks though to Ifor for a really tough, engaging challenge, which was always fair if, at times, intricate. Must have taken some construction. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[sunny-dave]

Phew - that was a corker - the pleasure in it finally dropping out in such a very neat fashion was considerable.

I really liked the neat way of resolving the ambiguity - nice title too.

Thanks Ifor for a good workout.

[Scorpius]

I must confess to having very mixed feelings about this puzzle. I liked the ambiguity and its resolution, and the discovery of more than the minimum thematic material in the grid. However,I would have been happier if that hadn't been preceded by such a tough, and at times fiddly, workout.
The disordered clues was perfectly justified, but I couldn't see any justification for withholding answer or entry lengths. These wouldn't have given anything away since the clues were not i grid order. If answer lengths had been given that would have narrowed the options for the entry with two letters but that would hardly be much of a giveaway. Nor could I see the need for the instructions to be given twice, and as noted above, two extra letters in wordplay made things especially tough. It seemed to me that this was all done to make the puzzle more difficult without having much of a thematic justification (merely a double in the theme).
Other difficulties include ambiguities in the letter pairs in some clues, as noted by Hagen, and several instances where the two extra letters came from a three-letter abbreviation or word. Sorry, but that is just inelegant cluing.

[Cruncher]

My favourite puzzle this year although I thought it was tough to find two missing letters when, on occasions, there was only letter left in the entry as a guide. Presumably that was why the instructions were duplicated. Would have been very hard otherwise

[emcee]

That was quite a struggle; cigarette breaks doubled over the last 48 hours just to get back to the puzzle!

I can finally justify the extra letters in each clue but a handful were very difficult to spot. I agree with the suggestion that giving the entry lengths would have been kinder without taking away the difficulty of some of the clues.

It came together all rather neatly in the end and I, too, loved the title.

Thanks, Ifor, but perhaps be a smidgen kinder on us poor solvers in future!

[olichant]

Wow, I found that tough. There were some nice surface readings. I do agree with some of the comments above - whilst I ultimately enjoyed the challenge of the (tricky) gimmicked clues, I did question the significance of the doubled up messages. Completely forgot about the letter string given in the preamble. I did enjoy the ultimate resolution.

[icynorth]

After a couple of beginners’ puzzles in recent weeks, this was a real challenge, thanks Ifor. I needed all the extra help in the preamble to tease out those answers, so it was well-judged. And the theme remained a mystery until the very end. Brilliant.

[Encota]

I have to say I loved this one - but then I do like a challenge! I've just written up my Listen With Others blog and scheduled it for some time in the distant future (10th November at 16:00, if you're asking) - difficult to comment more here without spoiling. One of my top-few favourites of the year. I agree with others that if every L was this hard then it'd be too much ...
... perhaps (at least) every other one would be about right ;-)

[Alekhine]

Real mixed feelings about this. I found it tough and immensely enjoyable ... but ... my method hinged on guessing the instructions once I had solved a few clues, then guessing at some further answers knowing the extra letters, then parsing those clues.

I suspect that many of the clues would be extremely difficult if the extra letters weren't known.

So ... it all felt a bit back-to-front to me. Also, I felt that the presence of the ambiguity was untidy.

Enjoyable, but not one for the purist, I think.

[crosswhit99]

The absence of answer lengths definitely spoiled this for a lot of solvers. One of the first clues I solved was the ninth, which unfortunately has two valid answers, one starting with A (6 letters), extra letters D and S, and the other required entry starting with C (7 letters). This provided misleading letters for the instructions and not surprisingly also caused considerable delay in solving clues 5 to 8, very unfair to the solver !

[icynorth]

I see your red herring, crosswhit99. I’m not sure the jumble identifier is good enough, but you raise a good point on how misleading a wrong guess can be.

[the_heisman]

yes great grid fill although I haven't yet attempted the final stage of resolving the ambiguity - although I think I can see where its going. On another note as I am spending a lot of time abroad I often need to try to get the puzzle online - which used to be easy using the Crossword Club but now seems to be impossible. has anyone any useful tips?

[crosswhit99]

The anagram indicator in the ninth clue(travel) is actually the same for both possible answers, it's the fodder that is slightly different depending on how the wordplay is interpreted and unfortunately both answers are equally justifiable from the clue. As there was no assistance from cross-checking letters the answer length really should have been given for this clue at least.

[British_Olympics]

Perhaps we should be grateful that only one clue was ambiguous here. I seem to remember there was a puzzle whose every clue led to two equally valid answers of the same length, leading to two different grid fills !!

[Hagen]

The Heisman - You now have to subscribe to the whole Times package (which includes Crossword Club) to get the puzzles online. A few of us were lucky enough to be able to access the Club for free for quite a while because the Times didn't notice that our subscriptions had run out, but since the August "upgrade" that is no longer possible.

I understand that some bona fide members still have problems getting the puzzles to load on the new site, but I think that applies mostly to the interactive version. The Listener is supplied as a PDF so there shouldn't be a problem printing it off. HTH.