Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Oh, thank you, Ixion - you're brilliant. I wish I could send you the grid. Anyone near you with the last Sunday Times? I've still not received any great enlightenment.
How about this one - "Can packer having meagre anorak finish early?" 6 letters, first one T(definite)

Oh, and Ixion - the "Merrier drinker, etc" one I gave you turned out to be "Pied noir" - an Algeriab of french descent (Chambers)

You're doing very well everyone. But for your information and to avoid disappointment the Listener is in Saturday's Times.

Most of you seem unfamiliar with the Listener Crossword and its traditions. One such is the keeping of statistics about every entry that's submitted, described at http://www.listenercrossword.com/List_Statistics.html. Also, apart from the weekly prizes, there are annual awards for the most successful solver.

While it's heartening to see the crossword reaching a new audience, please be aware that by discussing and revealing answers on a public website before the closing date for competition entries, you are making them available to people who would use them to complete a puzzle otherwise beyond their faculties. The evidence for this effect, resulting from discussions on the AnswerBank site (where the prevailing culture has now developed to giving hints only, not answers), can be seen in the percentage of solvers who were all-correct for the year, which has risen by an average of 70% per year from 2004 to 2008.

Spoiler, are you kidding? Read through the thread - I don't think your stats are in any danger from the contributors on this site!

spoiler - i doubt my contributions have altered the stats much - i note from the answerbank thread that although hints are given invites to email for answers are frequent - there is also a tradition on this site of people posting clues and others trying to answer them! - the Listener is a bit out of my league but i enjoyed having a go at the clues posted.

To Spoiler:- I take the point of your contribution, but there is another side you know. Most of us who contribute to this site appear to be keen crossword addicts. Regular use does give one an inclination to try harder puzzles than usual. Group participation stirs the interest. We might just as well be a group of family or friends discussing a xword between us. Perhaps the Listener is so elitist that it wants no further contributors? I should think it a cause for celebration that the percentage of all-correct solvers had risen so dramatically - they didn't get ALL the answers from a site such as this.
It was group participation that inspired in me a so-far 40 year obsession with crosswords, going up the scale from easy to harder. I don't aspire to the Listener yet, but correspondence here has made me feel that I'll at least try it.

Nothing to do with Answerbank, it's a direct result of Labour's increased spending on education.