This blog is in another dimension...

We are at the half-way point in George vs the Listener Crossword!

This week, it's "Travel Agents" by Hedge-Sparrow. Hedge-sparrow appears to be either a new setter or another pseudonym (a neudonym?) of a previous setter. Preamble time - the grid represents a region containing a number of interconnected entries... across clues have extra expressions, down clues have wordplay leading to extra letters, but are entered normally.

So let's start with the downs and enter normally, shall we? I'm feeling good really quickly, because the wordplay doesn't seem too tricky. If you want to give me hope, start off with an anagram, and here we are, LESS RUST becomes RESULTS with an S, then EC(H)O,NOMIC,S (long aside - any other Hofstadter fans who tried to play Nomic, the card game where the rules change every hand? I nearly failed Organic Chemistry because I'd leave my lab bench to go join the game in the hall.), V,(O),OWING, EVE(R) and AIRN(T), and it looks like the first word in my down phrase is SHORT, 13ac is SOWER, and 17ac is UNI-N--- so if the entries turn out to be real words, it looks like it's going to be UNIONIST.

Got a good feeling, that was doomed to be short-lived. The rest of the down clues came in fits and starts, and I wasn't sure of a few of the extra letters. Near the end of the downs, I had DIET(R), IN(A)RE, P(V)ALP, and D(L)IE, so the last word of the phrase is likely to be ????RAVEL, and with TRAVEL in the title, 36 probably has an extra T.

At this point my extra downs letters looked like

SHORTC--SF--S-AC--IM--RAVEL, and I really want the second word to be CUTS, but can't make anything of the clue.

Acrosses: Found these a little unnerving. 1 is REVERSE.. and REVE goes into the grid, but the next letter is an A. Extra word appears to be BIBLICAL, but I don't know how that fits. 8 is PA,R,S, extra word ROWS, and my grid entry ends RT. 11 is COVE (hidden word), and extra POEM, and I have COVI-. 13 looks like S,ASH with extra word LEAD, and I have the complete entry, SOWER. 17 looks like UNI,ON,S, extra word CUTS, and I have UNI-N-S-.

It appears the first parts of words are intact, and something's got to happen to the second halves.

Stuck for a while, I took a lot longer on the across clues than on the first... until I saw that 25 could be G(ROW)ER - and there's my OWER sitting in 13!

No way... could it be the same deal as in one that I couldn't finish, "Reappearance"? The ends of words are moved? That would make SHORT CUTS make sense.

Back to the downs... SHORT CUTS FOR SPACE TIME TRAVEL!!!!! Guessing the phrase gets me a few more down clues - 7 is NE(U)ST, 26 is MOD(E)I. I then took the acrosses that I knew and started trying to fit in the first and second halves of letters.

Oddly enough, a few hours of bashing at this and I was still stuck for a while, particularly in the middle section. I thought about what needed to be highlighted, actually thinking it would probably be warp hole or wormhole, and there on the diagonal was WO-M-OLES. That convinced me that 22D was ASHEN, still not sure about the wordplay - SHE in (W)AN? and the end of 19 was the ER from DOCKER. And I'm not 100% on the first letter at 47, since everything else in the acrosses seems to be a word, but I can't think of anything else but WEEDING for 47ac.

And we're done. I still have no idea where the extra words in the across clues came in. You nearly had me, Hedge-sparrow, after all those down entries filled in and no clue on what to do with acrosses, I nearly gave up. Eventually I resorted to writing the bits out and crossing them off as I found spaces or words for them (you can see that on my grid). But the slide is halted at two and I'm just keeping above water in the battle.

Current tally: George 14, Listener 12. Current streak: George 1.

Half-time report.

If you told me a year ago I could solve 14 of these beasties I would have laughed myself silly. Off the top of my head, last year I completed maybe 5. Keeping the blog has helped immensely, both in keeping myself on track, and thinking about different solutions. That this blog gets read and commented on is an extra blessing, it's nice to know I'm not alone in solving mediocrity. Seeing themes and taking leaps of faith on phrases is a good thing. Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

1, 2, 3, 4, fizz, 6, buzz, 8, 9, fizz, 11, 12, 13, buzz, fizz - when do I get a drink?

Before I get on with the blog, a little personal sad note, today would have been my partner's 29th birthday. If you have a loved one, give them a smile today.



The horror of seeing a grid without bars! The only crossword without bars I've ever completed was Carte Blanche by Homer. The puzzle is by BeRo - one of the first Listeners I attempted, and one that got me hooked on trying to solve them was an earlier puzzle by BeRo that turned into a letter sudoku.

I remember "fizz buzz" from elementary school, but have never done it as a drinking game. It's too mathematical for my American friends. Answers change direction when they hit a wall (hey, so do I!), or when one of the fizz or buzz letters is encountered. That would be E, G, J, N, O, T, U Y. And they can start in any direction... off to solve as many clues as I can, so I can at least put the starting letters in place.

There's a lot of clues!!!!!!

Some of them start in the same box, so I can get a few starting letters. It looks to me like getting 32, 33, 36 and 37 would be really helpful (though that turned out not to be the case).

To cut a very long story short... I came up way short on this one. I got a little more than half the clues, but not enough to really construct the grid. With E, N, T, and O causing a change in direction, that's going to happen pretty often. I tried fitting some of the longer words with fewer direction changes first (BODHI TREES, TITANOMACHY, LYDFORD LAW), but I think starting from the middle and working outwards might have been a better approach.

My real problem here was being unable to solve enough of the clues to get moving. Sorry, BeRo, you had some clues I really liked, but I'm going to spend some time on the ones that really stumped me. It's complicated on this type of puzzle, because until you get a lot filled in, I can't see where I could get checking letters from, until I know that the twists and turns of the answers get me there.

Here is where I'm truly lost...

1) There is a 13-letter word for "outgrowth" in Bradford's, but I can't fit it to the wordplay at all.
3) I wanted IGNORAMUS or some form of that here, but trying to fit anagrams of IMAGES doesn't help me.
6) Less avant-garde?
12) Is this a subtraction anagram? It must be a well-written clue because I can't find a definition
15) ??? S-M-?
17) -ADL--- -ALD---... help me out, vocabulary
20) baffled
23) also looks like a subtraction clue, but can't see what to lose
25) Both of them. Eeeks
45) Can't wait to see what I was meant to do with this.

So well done, BeRo - it looks like a really nice puzzle, but it's got me today - and you have nearly erased my once-comfortable lead in this battle!

Current tally: Listener 12, George 13. Current streak: Listener 2.

Listener 3986: Terminal Suspension by Schadenfreude

I'm writing this on the morning of the 4th of July, and in true American spirit, I'm watching cricket and blogging about a British crossword, woohoo!

Terminal Suspension by Schadenfreude, who is the champion of setters that I can get most of the way with, and completely fail to finish. Last December brought "Misprinted Choice" which was way out of my comfort zone (though I liked the puzzle when I saw the answer), before that came three crosswords that lead to nearly-empty grids. So here we go with Terminal Suspension.

For the third week in a row I had preamble understanding issues. Lots of clues need a letter removed, but I can't tell if it's all of them except the six that need a misprint, or just the ones that don't need a misprint or need a letter moved up to the top of the grid. Across clues are entered normally and I know all but the last six need a letter removed, so let's get a start on those.

16ac gets me started on both the letter removal and the puzzle - Aragon looks like he needs to lose an A to make argon, and we have GAS,P.Y. Even though I'd looked at it once, that made me twig on 11 - it's rarer and we have ARE(a) bordered by (B)rooks. In 17, SNOTS looks like it needs to lose a N to make SOTS, and INsomethingANTS becomes INTEMPERANTS. I'm liking these across clues, the clue surface makes sense after the letter removal. 23 is a subtractanagram, 25 is LETO. Yes, I'm a clue-solving machine!

At least until the bottom half of the grid, which turns up depressingly empty at a first run-through.

A decent start on the downs, though I'm convinced that all of the clues have extra letters, it doesn't take me until much later to realise that the ones that need to have a letter moved to the top don't need a letter removed from the clue. Anyway, PROY, MENSE, GRIOT come quickly, and I have my first letter in the top row, the I from GRIOT! I have GYNIE for 6, meaning either a G or a Y go to the top, and 20 is ALDIS LAMP - the ALD are in place, don't have any other checking letters. 22 is a complex anagram of SHOOT-EM-UP (nice clue), and I move the H to the top row. Some thinking and I have WRYBILL for 11, so a W goes to the top.

What now... I can't get anywhere with the first letters - since I thought I had to remove letters from most clues, I have B---ANDT-ILI-NE---C-C-A-L-U-M---N-.

What now?

Odd thought moment - the bottom row is unclued (and not mentioned in the preamble). So there'd be no way of knowing if you had to remove the last or second-last letter if that was the one to go. So maybe the last letters of the downs stay in, and then I've got PE-P at the end of it, and LITTLE BO PEEP would go across the bottom! Woohoo! A Word Wizards search of W---I---H turns up WEEPING BIRCH as a possibility. It's the sheep and their tales!

It finally hits me that I don't need to remove letters from every clue, and so the phrase becomes BOYSANDTAILSINEACHCOLUMN (hmmm, though that makes the remaining word in 13 MONE?).

This gets me a grid that is almost full, there's a gap around that annoying 37A (where it seems I have to read pages of Chambers to find it). BOYS AND TAILS looks like a possibility, the first column has (reading down) YBILL - so the tail of BILLY has moved. The last column has YSOOT. Can the tails be at either end? That wouild give me ROYT in the third column, NSEA in the second. OTM? OBIN is in the sixth column, but the R is further down.

Well done, Schadenfreude, you've got me again. I have a nearly-full grid, a grasp of the theme, and can't make it to the finish line. I had a lot of fun, and I thought I was going to get there, but this one has just stumped me in the end-game.

Current tally: Listener 11, George 13. Current streak: Listener 1

Clement Ines, heh heh heh

Two disappointing weeks in a row, let's see what the next challenge brings. "Yes" by Lato. I've only tried one Lato puzzle before, "4", in which I got a few grid entries but didn't come close to the theme. What's in this one...

Eleven entries associated with members of a group. Extra words in eleven clues - hmmm, I like extra words, but finding just eleven of them will be tricky. Seven-letter word that completes assocation. I hope it's an obvious word.

I got my hopes up quickly here - I started this one on the plane on the way back from my New Jersey/New York trip, and without any aids at all, I had a good third of the grid filled in, and a couple of obvious extra words. The clues appear to be around my level, and rather fun. 10ac being s(ANRDA) Bullock with OR in to make ANDORRA is a very amusing construction, as is 15ac.

13ac gives me my first extra word - COCKATOO, 26ac my second - FILM. Films about cockatoos? The clues retain their surface after removing the extra words, so pretty good stuff here.

Even before I got stuck in to the dictionaries, I spotted a likely contender. I have COCKATOO, and there's -I-CHELL. Good Aussie lad that I am (or was), I know a MAJOR MITCHELL when I see one! -AY is ingering tantalisingly in the NE corner. There's eleven entries. I now have DEPRESSING PLACE IN SOMERSET from the entries lacking definition (not 100% on DEPRESSING, but it seems to be the only thing that fits. Googling the phrase brings up Peter Roebuck's tour diaries, which means -AY has to be Peter May and we're looking for cricketers. OK, where's the Bothams, Larwoods, Olds, Snows... ummm... they're nowhere.

Bugger.

And for a week I had a grid that was complete except for 34ac and 37ac, and MAY and MITCHELL written in before I knew any better.

Deeper searching on the phrase brings up DOWNING STREET as a possibility. AHA - it's not the MITCHELL that is the parrot, it's the MAJOR. The current prime minister is BROWN, and BROWN BETTY is a PUDDING. We're off again! It's still MAY, but we're it's MAGGIE (Thatcher) MAY, the Song by that old Scots git. Final confirmation here came from looking up "Grouse" on wikipedia and finding that a HEATH HEN is a type of grouse. Working backwards through Prime Minsters, I have a full grid and a relieved expression. The slide is stopped at 2!

Oh, I almost forgot, the extra word is PROJECT for the TONY BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. It might have been a better film that way. Nice puzzle, Lato, you held me up for a long time there, however a last-minute gasp victory for George.

Current tally: George 13, Listener 10. Current streak: George 1.

Fibonaccis and cubes and primes oh my!

Let me take back what I said earlier about finding numerical puzzles easier. I have a great fondness for the number puzzles, my first completed Listener was "Telling Fibs" by Arcturus (a peek at the standings for 2005 show that it was solved by twice as many people as any other puzzle that year, so maybe I shouldn't be boasting).

This time we've got three grids, Fibonacci numbers, primes and cubes. And there must be some logical starting point. Eventually I found it... and it turned out to be my stopping point as well.

I numbered the grids with the bars 1 and 2, and the empty grid 3...

2C cannot be E+E'+e
2C cannot be Prime x F - so 2C is prime
1D cannot be ExG
2F cannot be A+e'
2B cannot be AB
1c cannot be d'-B (since B is larger than d')
1d cannot be 5G
2d cannot be 5G - so 3d is 5G
1d cannot be A/b

Since 2d is A/b, 2A cannot be prime.
This leaves 2A to be a 4-digit Fibonacci number divisible by either a 2-digit Fibonacci number (none work) or divisible by a 2-digit even number (none work)
Or 2A is a cube divisible by a 2-digit Fibonacci number (no), or by an even 2-digit number that starts with the same number. That gives me the trivial case of 8000 (can't be 8000 since that would make 2c start with 0), or 5832 which is divisible by 54 to get 108. Woohoo, I'm on a roll and I can fill in 2A, 2b, 2d, and 2E

And that got me to a complete and utter grinding halt.

Oyler beats me again - I got really close on last year's "Dedication".

The gap is closing... current tally: Listener 10, George 12. Current streak: Listener 2

nonappearance

I've noticed over the last few weeks that I don't have a lot of time to work on the Listener during the week, so I need to put more weekend time aside to making a start. This is not an excuse, read on to find out about possibly my worst performance of the year...

From the preamble, I knew this was going to be a tough one for me. Thematic entry has not been my strong point, though I did get the Prousty one earlier, and the "one down, fifty-one to go" from the first puzzle of the year. Seven clues have wordplay that leads to an answer to be entered elsewhere. Immediately I'm confused - does this mean there's entries with no wordplay? Or are these seven just mutually mixed?

OK... all but seven (or maybe fourteen) clues are normal. Let's solve some clues and see where we get.

5ac makes me want to put WAPPLE as the wordplay, but Chambers is WAPPLEless. Not a good start. 13a gives me LABOR UNION and is a nice clue, and fits the length given. So nice that I immediately pen LABORUNI in at 10a and realise I've put it in the word at the wrong place and it's got to be thematically altered. Oops. I can come back and thematically alter it later.

14 looks like it gives wordplay to CURE. But I don't see any definitions in the 4-letter clues that would give me CURE.

16... ummm... ---LE being pushed together? STAPLE? But PATS isn't "thus" when cycling. So it's HUSTLE. Nice clue

18 is HEWN. 19 looks like EVACUANT. I still haven't found any spurious wordplay except maybe CLUE. But the across entries have the same number of letters as the grid. So a jumble or a letter substitution most likely.

31 looks like maybe wordplay giving MEAD. But I don't see any definition for MEAD. Maybe I'll have more luck with the downs.

AHA! The downs have more letters in the answer than there are spaces in the grid. Letters must be lost. I'm having real problems getting answers to these clues (did Poat ask Sabre for advice on how to stump me?). I can only see 8 (EMBRASE), 17 (PEN HOLDER), 20 (VACATUR).

24 looks like the wordplay could be IDLE, but I can't see a definition.

Finally! With the lucky last clue, BEDPAN matches the definition at 29a (One warming the sheets) and I get to confidently write in one word!!!!

Now what... I know there's a B in the author's seven-letter name and there is a book that is "The ------ ------". Ummm... "The Secret Garden" by Burnett? That's not going to help.

All the answers to down clues I found had one letter repeated in the answer. So I tried entering those with the second occurrence of the letter just so the grid looks a little fuller, but this is a pretty dismal effort on my part.

Poat has had the advantage on me a couple of times. "Multi-part puzzle" was the first dartboard grid I tried (and failed) and "Grid References" was total lack of grid completion. But congratulations to you, Poat, "Reappearance" was almost an empty grid. Victory to the Listener Crossword!

Current tally: Listener 9, George 12. Current streak: Listener 1.

Hooray for Captain Spaulding!

As promised, I'm a day late with this one, got back into town this morning, having racked up an hour or two of sleep over the last five days, but all (well, mostly) in good fun.

I started this one in a bar (Dirty Jacks, in Asheville, North Carolina) and didn't get very far on a first sitting. Grid entries forming four pairs, one half normally clued, one half unclued. 29 clues where the wordplay gives an extra letter, that looks like about two-thirds of the clues will do this.

Actually I got off to a terrible start, half the guesses I made in the pub turned out to be wrong, there's a fair bit more scribble on this than in others. I had ASIDES instead of BSIDES, DEANA instead of DEENA, and I can't even see what I had originally put in for DAPHNIA. The clues weren't too hard, not knowing if there was going to be an extra letter or not caused some struggles. This extra-letter wordplay led to some fun answers, I liked 35 - TOUR(X)IE, and 28 - MAHDI(M), and a major hats off to 25 - S(S)USS. Sibilance away!

The penny dropped when I got 19 - BUSINESS and with 37 being -ON-EY, and having MARX in the extra letters, I figured it had to be MONKEY, and it's a Marx Brothers theme. Strangely helpful that, it confirmed the rest of the SE corner knowing that the last 6 extra letters in the downs were GROUCHO, and I didn't have DUCK or SOUP, but seeing an empty four-letter space, that was where it had to be, and there was MARX BROTHERS up the SW-NE diagonal. I'll admit I never got the full quote until I read the solution on Friday.

This would be another good puzzle for people getting started on and into the Listener. I think a kinship to the theme helped me out more than anything.

Let's file this one where it belongs, between my Marx Brothers DVDs



After two Listener wins in a row, we have a victory for George! Current standings - George 12, Listener 8. Current streak, George 1.