Listener number fifteen from Ifor this week and you know you’ll be in for a treat. A carte blanche, no clue numbers and no entry or answer lengths!
There were no entry lengths since they would tell us the two letters to take from each clue, one counting from the start and one from the end. Slotting AMID, SLAP and IAMB across the top of the grid got things off to a flying start, and the rest came together pretty quickly — Ifor can be quite tricky sometimes! Favourite clues were:
- 26dn (yes, I know clue numbers weren’t given): I’ll exhibit low bare trend, turning rearwards for MOONER [MOO + (t)REN(d)<]; lovely &lit.
- 32dn: Small serving of Scotch swallowed after the bar ends in haste for TATE [ATE after THE – H(ast)E]
Thinking that Loretta was Linette from the clue letters held me up for a bit before getting the wordplay for our inventor as Right pinch within boxes imprisoning bright girl (6,6). I started looking through the list of Some First Names in Chambers (hope you’ve upgraded from the 12th edition which missed them out). “Quicker to see what Mrs B says,” thought I. Bertha was there under bright, and that could give a first name of Robert or Albert.
Some forty minutes later and the somewhat tortuous wordplay revealed ROBERT HARBIN [(ROB + IN around R) around BERTHA]. I think I was helped by remembering him from variety shows back in the 60’s and 70’s where he performed the Zig-Zag Lady illusion, the alternative letters from clues being girl’s names. Moving the grid’s stomach to the left simulated the illusion and gave us a whole slew of new words.
Great fun, including the amusing title. Thanks, Ifor.
Full clue analysis can be found at the Listener Crossword website.
I’m sorry but that ‘wordplay’ for a name is just absurd. I consider myself a pretty good solver and I know others who are even better than me none of whom could solve the ‘clue’. It only ‘hints’ at the game if you already know that’s the theme. We are not mind readers!!
Grrrrr.
Yes. I have just deleted a long rant. I have been waiting for this reveal to find out how stupid I was. Answer, not very. Apart from the labyrinthine impossible clue for a name, as a hint to a thematic effect, only three of the seven words (boxes, imprisoning, girls) seem relevant. What on earth does ‘pinch right’ mean? Misjudged. A shame, because the clues and grid-fill were a real pleasure.
As some revenge, might I point out that the grid does not properly represent the trick, which relies on the middle box not being fully displaced with respect to the upper/lower ones, to give the girl inside room to twist her body through the small gaps. (per wiki, but perhaps it’s really done with mirrors).
It’s The Listener, there have to be some tricksy ones or we would all be in the all-correct list. I’d never heard of the Zig Zag Lady nor its creator, and it took a whole week after the grid fill before I thought of sawing a lady in half. Invented by Horace Goldin, which wasted another morning as I tried to make sense of the wordplay. Finally I realised that the lady needed to be vertical in the diagram, and Google came to my rescue when I enquired about sawing a lady in half vertically (earlier searches for women in boxes were not ones I wanted to follow up).
So yes this time I’m relieved because I did solve it, and next time when I just can’t see my way to the end I shall try not to blame the puzzle or the setter.
It occurs to me now that ‘right pinch’ could mean ‘real squeeze’. Is that right? Makes sense, in context, but would never have understood it like that without knowing the context, and researching the trick. Still no idea about bright.
acha@3, there’s certainly some sour grapes in my comment, but I don’t agree with the gist of your point about the all-correct list. The Listener is a difficult puzzle, full stop. To get them all right for a year requires not only being able to do difficult puzzles, but also a great deal of dedication, care and probably luck. That should be enough without chucking in extra banana skins just to whittle down numbers. (I’m sure that wasn’t the intention here, though). I don’t submit, do only about 1/2 the puzzles and only complete correctly about 3/4 of those, so I’m not sore about my statistics. I was disappointed, having done everything required, to have had to leave the puzzle without even knowing what field of human endeavour it referred to. What was required was a psychic leap. Obviously, some managed that, but was it necessary?
James, thanks for your comments. @2 You’re right about the actual trick not pushing the middle box right across, hence the pause in my animation before the final crunch! But then the preamble does describe it as a “thematic effect”. @4 I think the ‘pinch’ can relate to the squeeze of the girl but means ‘rob’ in the wordplay. Not the easiest of clues.
I noticed and appreciated the pause. I pictured the magician pushing the box, finding it stuck, and giving it a final heavy shove. Ouch. I suppose, as you say, the illusion is that the box goes all the way.
@3. If that is aimed at me – which I assume it is – then you’re entitled to your view, which appears to be ‘the setter is always right’. Some of us are more prepared to call a spade a spade and I make no apology for doing so. I maintain that the ‘wordplay’ does not fairly lead to the name, and as a hint it’s as vague as one could imagine
I also felt very hard done by with this one. All that work to be not directed to the theme, but instead presented with something this opaque and obscure? Not on in my opinion.
Got there in the end, but only by studying the hits on the crossword solver forum!
Didn’t help that I lost a good few hours of solving due to the incorrect clue in the paper version – spent ages trying to get “tenon” to fit, which was the answer to the clue as given, rather than “nonet”.
And please can someone explain why Bertha is a bright girl?
*hints