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Les and ab, we sincerely appreciate the time and effort you put into the JE.
Maybe "stud" or whatever (i cen't even be bothered to check) is Quixote?

Well said, les --- I stand behind every word you wrote there! Maybe we should have said it ourselves long ago. I am amazed at what you produce without having some kind of a breakdown. I often think: "Go easy, mate!" If the contributor had thought for one moment about how much sheer effort goes into this thing every single time, I'm sure at least he would have formulated his compolaint a little differently. As they used to say in Latin "Nil illegitimis carborundum" (Don't let the b*st*rds get you down). We're all with you, and you know that! gk

Well said Les,

One of the nice things about the JE is the encouragement you give us when we send you our clues. Don’t worry about the odd slip. It’s irrelevant.

My favourite clues include 30a from Chrise ( I like the sounds like), 39a from imagcq (nice clue where you have to stand on your head), 52a from ginge (excellent use of taking away from an anagram) and 1d from peterm ( I’m always a sucker for Spoonerisms) plus many others . Keep up the good work!

Isn't the response to Stud's question a bit over the top. If anything is inane, crass and verbose surely it is Les40's rambling non-reply. Stud didn't bad-mouth anybody. He simply asked a straight forward question. A question that has nothing to do with how much work somebody has put into producing the JE.

As we all know even proper crosswords occasionally contain errors. When these occur they are always picked up by someone (usually several someones) and commented on. Or at least queried.

How come nobody picked up on this one. It certainly wasn't a typo and it's not a piffling unimportant detail. It's plain wrong.

You have to assume that nobody spotted it and that means that parsing the answer to the clue was impossible. Nobody could have parsed it but nobody thought to mention this. Is this an example of the emperors new clothes.

I've noticed before that while you say comments are welcome what you really mean is that flattering comments are welcome.

Well, the way I see it stud Whoops! sorry, i meant harbinger, maybe it was a bit over the top but if you read the multiple choice question choices at Post 12, you should notice that 'E' is quite concise enough to explain what is deemed as repectful feedback and what is not. I, for one actually prefer being pulled up for making a mistake because it keeps me on my toes and can only be a boon to improving my clue writing capabilities. This is evident in choice 'B' also in Post 12 in the last couple of lines. Also, if you read the wordplay file and pay special attention to the explanation in the clue for 3d which I set, I sent a 'NB' to AB to add that I myself had made a (what I would call) a catasprophic blunder in that I completely missed the extraction indicator, I also now realise that I completely missed out a word to qualify 'unfriendly' to be used as a noun. The clue should read something like this:

3d) Nobble pace of cheetah before leaving unfriendly type disturbance (6,2,3,5)

Instead of what I did enter, which was:

3d) Nobble pace of cheetah before unfriendly disturbance (6,2,3,5)

This was incorrect and does prove that I'm not a person with a God Complex who thinks he's perfect all the time, I am in fact someone who can hold his hand up and admit his own mistakes, I would have had no problem whatsoever with someone contacting me, either on here or by email to alert me to that fact because I didn't notice it myself until it was too late and the grid had been published.

It's about respect harbinger and how one addresses it to the receiver, so I would appreciate your feedback on this.
I'm going out for a while now but could you reply sooner than 21 hours this time and please don't do a 'smoke and mirrors' number on me and come back under a different guise.
I'll be looking forward to a reply when I get back in, the sooner the better really to avoid the embarrassing situation of l'esprit de l'escalier.

(You'll find the Chambers Def doesn't have the first l' and appears as esprit de l'escalier) Just thought I'd mention that as I don't want an accusation of not doing my job of checking French terms, you know what that can cause.

Now be careful out there, Les40

Les40, you clearly think that I am "Stud" what with the "stud, whoops, I meant harbringer" and then the smoke and mirrors comments. I am not Stud. Why don't you ask Admin to confirm that the Stud and harbringer postings came from different computers, which I am sure they can easily do. Your assumption that I am really Stud (without any evidence at all) shows a lack of the respect that you expect others to show you.

I'll ignore all that guff about Cheetahs because it's irrelevant.

You are simply missing the point (deliberately or otherwise I don't know). It doesn't matter that your puzzle contained an error, as I said before, even proper crosswords do that occasionally. What matters is that nobody picked up on it. I've already said what that infers about those who "solved it".

You seem to be complaining that I took 21 hours to reply. I wasn't directly replying to your little piece. I was replying to the overall response to Stud. The snide comments and general insults.

I feel obliged to add that your ability to properly check French terms is not up to the required standard either. The spirit de l'escalier phrase refers to witty spoken remarks, not things written down. People don't usually write while walking down staircases do they.

I don't really want to hear any more about how hard you are working to better yourself and that you don't really have a God complex. Good luck for the future - I can see you've got a lot of work lined up. This is my last posting on this matter.

Firstly, I am not going to go to the trouble of trying to contact admin to try and prove who you really are, I would guess that admin stick by certain ethical regulations not to pass on information like that anyway. It wouldn't prove a thing anyway if they did, I or anyone else could go and use another computer and log on with another email address and user name, it's not rocket science and I suspect many do on many different forums.

Secondly, If you're going to split hairs about l'esprit de l'escalier, then lets have it correct please that the literal definition does indeed refer to the walking down the stairs thinking of a witty retort, however, I'll think you'll find that in its general understanding it means to think of a witty retort (whether written, spoken or thought of) after the event that it would be most fitting to use it in, a missed opportunity.

Thirdly, You make comment to not being under any other forum name (stud or any other) but I see your handle is 'harbinger' and it appears in each post heading as 'harbinger' yet you spell it differently in your last post. Now, before you fly up in a rage about a simple spelling mistake which we can all make including myself, you actually make the mistake more than once which makes me suspicious of your real identity and leads me to believe that your apparent accidental faux pas could be a moment of forgetfulness of who you really are. Smoke and mirrors my friend... smoke and mirrors

You say you're not replying again so you have a lovely day and it was enlightening to cross swords with you.

My apologies for the mistake at 13 ac. Always had problems with numbers. Thanks for your understanding.I'll try to do better next time round.