Friday, May 30, 2008

Does Lip Service lead to a Pelvic Rise?

listener3981

Welcome back to George vs the Listener Crossword, one exceedingly average solver's attempt to get half of the Listeners out for the year. And I'll get it out of the way, this one has me completely flummoxed. From the preamble, it looks like I'd have to solve the whole grid before I can get started on the theme, with some assistance from the principal diagonal.

The good news is that it appears all clues are normal.

And bloody hard!

I'm itching to find out the actual solution to these, because even knowing that clues are normal and presumably Chambers words, means the first part of this should be more like a Mephisto, and I can usually get those out. But apart from an almost complete NE and SW corner, my grid is bare, and some of them are probably wrong.

I might have expected this... Sabre's last puzzle (A Paradox, A Paradox), I remember with particular angst, it was one of the puzzles last year that I managed exactly one grid entry (OUTFLANKED). Before that was Navigator, where I similarly had a very bare looking grid.

Congratulations, Sabre, you are too good for me, and I will lick my wounds now. A resounding walloping victory for the Listener crossword.

Current standings: Listener 8, George 11. Current streak: Listener 2.

A little note for regular readers - I'm going to be in New York City next week, so I most likely won't be posting on Friday. I'll be back in town on Saturday, so expect a write-up on 3982 then.

3 comments:

George the Bastard said...

Just read the solution - I stood zero chance of getting this one, never read "Little Dorrit", had a few mistakes in the grid, and even after reading the wordplay explanations on the Listener website, there's a few I am still stumped by.

Unknown said...

Yes, George, this was another vicious one.

I guessed at Little Dorrit, and on a whim looked it up in the ODQ. A likely canditate quotation jumped out,so I got lucky without having to have cracked the code first.

Enjoy NYC - I was there for my twentieth wedding anniversary a year ago and loved it. The Staten Island ferry has to be the best free ride in the world!

George the Bastard said...

Nice guess to get Little Dorrit - I followed a little the discussion on the crossword centre on whether this one was fair or not. If enough people got it, I guess it was fair, it was too much for me at this point.

And thanks - the main plan is to see my Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium before its torn down and spend a little time with my "mother-in-law" (not sure what the term is for mother of deceased partner is).