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Buzzb

I agree this is a phenomenal construction, as is often the case with Harribobs. Very, very impressive.

Unfortunately it has led to a puzzle that is (in my view) a bit of a car crash, with a fiddly and frustrating end game that takes much longer than the gridfill and doesn't produce anything particularly satisfying.

In Harribobs’ defence, the first post indicating completion on this thread was 3 1/4 hours after the puzzle appeared. So it can’t have been inordinately difficult by Listener standards. Of course one needed care in the second phase, but there were comparatively few paths which needed exploring, and neither of the unclued answers was all that obscure. Each to their own, of course, but I thought it was excellent.

This may have been answered already, but I've lost patience trawling thru the posts!
The preamble says to 're-enter the across answers...', but at the beginning, it says '...most answers intially entered after cycling.'
In phase 2, should I be entering using the answers to the across clues OR the grid entries for the across clues?
I've started entering answers but now I'm trying to enter a letter in a cell which has already been filled! This means either my counting is not up to the task – always feasible – OR I should be entering grid entries.
Which is it please?

It looks like you've miscounted - you were on the right track.

Thanks, drxx. Back to KS1 Arithmetic...

I am confused about the final two locations. Is the first location the one hinted at earlier starting with an R? It has seven letters so that leaves 23 letters for the second location. Is that possible?

I have a 13 letter two word place beginning with S as my first, although as I haven't figured out the second yet it could be wrong.

The two locations are 7,6 and 8,9

It isn't the R one but letters 4-7 of the first word would match those in R

quisling - hi. people will always have differing views as to what makes good and bad puzzles, that's part of the joy.

I disagree on the numbers of paths - there are literally tens of thousands of potential paths for the last two places. Obviously some can be ruled out quickly, but there's still a ton of work to do unless you get lucky and guess the places early.

I totally agree that a good solver that was very careful and got lucky with the place names could solve this quite quickly. For me I'm approaching 3 hours on the end game Vs less than 2 hour gridfill, and I personally don't generally enjoy puzzles of that type. But I do appreciate others may well.

Having utterly failed - despite numerous generous hints - to manage the second phase of EV1436 my heart sank when I saw this one. Just when you thought it was safe to enter the water!
I have however found Harribobs' clear clueing a help and am progressing - my thanks to the setter. I am still stuck in the NW corner. Can anyone give me a nudge on 2, 4 or 5 down and, in particular 9 across. Presumably one of these must be a location.

I will then have a bash at the next stage with good intentions and zero confidence. One thing is that I have plenty of time on my hands.

Again my thanks.