Listener 4501 - Two Solutions By Quinapalus

[kdgs2]

After being too tired to make much progress on this last night, I made the most of a delayed flight this morning and got there in the end (in both senses!). This was a clever construction, with mostly good clues, but a couple of the double definition ones felt rather strained. The diagonal entry instruction has left me a little confused, as to me it seems like they are fulfilling different roles in certain places. The PDM when I finally understood the instruction was lovely. Thank you Quinapalus

[Hagen]

I spent nearly two hours on this before I could enter a single word in the grid with confidence. It didn't help that I was was misled by the grid design into believing that certain grid entries were impossible! After slogging away for a couple of hours last night, and nearly all of this morning, I limped over the finish line battered and bruised. Thank goodness the endgame was unambiguous and relatively straightforward.

Clever construction? Certainly. Fun? Well, that depends on your definition of fun. A few years ago I read of a court case involving some men who were prone to nailing certain parts of their anatomy to a table. No doubt they found that fun. There was certainly a sense of real achievement at finishing this, though if this sort of puzzle becomes the norm I shall go out and buy a new hammer.

[olichant]

Ah, yes - that would be R v Brown, Hagen. A favourite of students of English criminal law.

Tough - and for me, enjoyable.

Ed

[Liathach]

Yes, that was pretty hard, even up to the last stage; the bottom left quarter was toughest for me. Still not sure about parsing 19 but maybe that will be obvious when I look again.

[Cruncher]

Most of the way and enjoying the ride. Clever stuff

[sunny-dave]

Phew - what a scorcher.

I'm not usually a fan of carte blanche, nor of overly intricate rubrics - but both added significantly to the fun as it all started to drop out after a (very) slow start.

Even with all the pennies dropped it was still difficult to finish off the South West corner - some excellently oblique clues I think.

Thanks Quinapalus - one of the toughest for a while and very satisfying to finish

[AndrewG-S]

I thought this was excellent. Best of the year for me.

[upsetter]

We can't say more than we are astounded and impressed by the extraordinary construction.

[HappyUncle]

Oh dear. I'm not a mathematician, and after cold-solving a great many of the often obscure clues, working out why it was that I couldn't make things fit in the extreme NW corner at first, and finally fitting everything together (excellent so far), I looked up the 5 of 38 41 and realised that the 14 wasn't going to get me anywhere. Foul! It's not the third week of this month yet, so why this?

If only we could have a puzzle in which fluency in French, German or Italian was essential, my degree and experience might come in handy. The level of bias to one specialism would be no greater than it is here.

[icynorth]

Quirky and brilliant, thanks, Quinapalus.

I thought the clues were all scrupulously fair, and 15 made me laugh out loud.

The only niggle is that the instruction solves the riddle too simply. After all that work, it would have been more fulfilling to have to solve the riddle too, and indicate this by highlighting, say.

[starwalker]

Well, after last week's walk in the park, it was back to business with avengence ! Incredible construction and some tough clues made this a tremendous challenge. Thanks Quinapalus.

[Flocker14]

Hats off! I can't imagine how long it must have taken to construct that so flawlessly. Took me ages but it was very well worth it and I've learned something new into the bargain.

[emcee]

I must admit that I'm glad to see the back of this puzzle. Thematically it's right up my street but I thought the clues were exceptionally difficult.

Some have commented on the SWcorner being difficult. I had that quadrant pretty much filled first; for me the NW corner was the most difficult!

An impressive construction from Quinapalus, but just a tad too difficult for me to enjoy, I'm afraid.

[Scorpius]

I'm with HappyUncle on this one. I didn't mind the difficulty of filling the grid, which was mostly a bit easier than I expected once I got rid of those distracting bars in a temporary grid. But the endgame had me trying to solve insoluble equations and staring at some maths diagrams with little understanding of what I was attempting to deal with. I'm sure those conversant with higher-level maths found it straightforward, but my 'O' level maths from the mid fifties did not encompass this sort of stuff. I'd very much like to know how many solvers managed to complete the puzzle without the help of an online maths solver. I suspect very few, in which case I would question whether the puzzle is really in the spirit of the Listener, as spelled out in the notes for setters. Being forced to use an online solving aid is very unsatisfying.

The last non-numerical puzzle that had an element of maths was Zero's origami kite. The maths involved in that was standard Pythagorean geometry, well within the capabilities of anyone with the equivalent of 'O' level maths. This puzzle demands something else.

Hagen's last sentence sums it up for me.

[Philoctetes]

I am not a mathematician, though I dare say I could slog to a solution with my o-level experience. But it is not really necessary, as a little logic suggests the number of possible options, one of which stands out. My real grumble is that the riddle is not actually in 5. But you cannot expect literal correctness from a maths puzzle!

[12barblues]

Agree with a lot of the above, even to the parsing of 19. If you remember one Technique and an admittedly slightly esoteric piece of maths knowledge then pencil and paper is all that’s needed. Quirky, yes; enjoyable, very much so

[12barblues]

19 parses easily when you have the right entry!

[olichant]

Just running through my answers again before posting. I thought there were some curious surface readings in the clues - maybe that's just me...