Listener 4293 : Shrub By Aedites

[BobHWW]

Hurrah - a relatively easy solve after last week's more difficult offering, so no interruption to tomorrow's Eurovision! I rather liked the final PDM. Thanks Aedites.

[olichant]

Trux, my (lame, back-of-an-envelope) suggestion - am sure others can do better...

Singer listens - Motown melody is massacred without hint of originality.

On reflection, this is why these things are best left to the pros...

[jim360]

You could adjust it a little, "Singer silent as finally Motown Melody's massacred with no hint of originality"? Not sure if that's better or not.

[trux]

"Gal's in love for sure, embracing sad singer-songwriter" ....

[jim360]

Good one but the Y's on the wrong side...

[trux]

..oops ... no that doesn't quite work!! Try again: "Broad agreement about loved-up melancholy singer-songerwriter"

[trux]

...singer-songwriter" ...

[Aloysius535]

Things went so much better after I corrected the (N)utter (32D)

[UglyUncle]

Meanwhile, back at the discussion of this week's Listener ... A lovely puzzle, not too demanding, with little need to consult the BRB (or any alternative electronic source that might otherwise have come to mind). I too was caught out initially by the misprint in 17, but even when I had worked out what it must be I was still puzzled as to what was intended; the internet hasn't provided a plausible answer.

One quibble: 3 had me stumped for a while and, as for others, was my final clue. I did solve it eventually, but only after realising that at that stage I didn't actually need to bother. It's a type of weakness by no means confined to this puzzle but perhaps inevitable from time to time when this kind of construction is chosen. It didn't spoil my enjoyment at all.

[IainGrace]

UglyUncle, that depends on how you construe the final instruction in the rubric.

[Cagey]

Thankfully more straightforward this week, and I enjoyed more. Frees up otherwise allocated time to tackle more of this months Magpie set which seem to be making only slow progress with.

[sunny-dave]

Excellent - I enjoyed that - even the grid-staring for the thematic character wasn't too protracted.

Some very cute misprints I thought

A nice workout - thanks Aedites

[sunny-dave]

IainGrace - yes I led myself astray with an incorrect misprint assumption in 17ac too.

In fact (although I know my answer is correct) I'm not 100% happy with my parsing of the actual misprint.

[UglyUncle]

IainGrace, now you've got me worried. My interpretation of the final instruction makes no difference to my comments on solving 3dn. What on earth can I have missed?

[IainGrace]

UglyUncle, can't comment further in this forum without breaking rules but happy to comment via [email protected].

The whole issue of what one can say in this forum, as debated a few weeks ago, is interesting. Even anodyne comments a couple of puzzles ago about the topic being of no interest to several people led us (then at an early stage of solving) to speculate as to what topics might be of no interest to regular (intellectual) Answerbankers and brought us broadly into the territory inhabited by the actual topic. I know that the answer is not to look at AB until one has polished off the puzzle but that is to eliminate the sense of community to a significant extent.

[IainGrace]

Ignore previous comment about final instruction. Confused myself (but not my dear spouse).