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Crossword Help Forum
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drxx

18th July 2020, 17:59
I think you got the hardest perimeter answer with the 11 letter one, williamseal - perhaps the next in difficulty is the one at 21. The 'secure' part is a seafaring word (5 letters) around M(ark) - and it's as obscure a word as the one you've already solved.
The rest are common synonyms.
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foinaven

18th July 2020, 18:14
It may well be that TEA is no longer available, but I have a copy on my PC and it is useful for solving clues with conditions, such as those in the current puzzle. The logo is a beehive. On my tablet I have the Chambers app which also includes an excellent program for anagrams, filling in gaps, etc - but not so good for this weekend's offering.

But I also have a app called Crossword Solver on my Apple devices, and this is similar to TEA and probably still available. It will allow you to search for anagrams with missing letters - so if you know that five of the letters are TRUMP and there are two more, it will give you 12 possibilities including CRUMPET, THUMPER and TRIUMPH. The last is alarming.

A friend of mine will not even use the dictionary in solving Listeners. He does the numerical puzzles as well but (being a Professor of Mathematics) has disdained to own a calculator.
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quisling

18th July 2020, 18:20
williamseal, I believe you can find it here:

https://tea-crossword-helper.soft112.com/

I should emphasise I have no connection with TEA, and I’m far from expert in its use. But in certain circumstances it can be helpful. As an example, if you have the letters M, J, N, I, I, and two other unknowns, you would type
;mjnii..
into the Pattern box (where the semicolon indicates an anagram and each dot indicates an unknown letter). Set the shortest and longest word length at 7 and press Word Search. It will show “misjoin” and “Jainism”. This is just scratching the surface of what it can do, of course. I’m sure Crossword Solver is equally useful
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jack aubrey

18th July 2020, 18:51
Apologies if this has already been answered or if it is something that will become obvious if I start on the puzzle. I’ve just printed this from the Times site and scanned the instructions. I’m confused by the instruction to omit a single letter from radial entries leaving a six letter residue. Several of the answers are enumerated at 8 or 9 letters. Is “or letters” after “a letter” missing from the instructions In the online version?
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jack aubrey

18th July 2020, 18:54
Ignore my question! “Wherever it occurs”. Read, don’t scan! Back in your box, Jack!
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specsaver

18th July 2020, 21:54
Phew. Found this hard work. Even though I spotted middle quotation it didn’t help very much. Knowing neither the work nor the character’s name made for a lot of www help.
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asv

19th July 2020, 01:42
Oof, bit of a joyless slog towards the end for me. Got the quote, perimeter, etc. fairly early then the rest was a case of filling in the gaps so there wasn't much fun near the end. Would put this towards the more difficult end of the scale for recent Listeners.

Did anyone find 18r a bit strange? The definition appears to be only an adjective, the answer only a noun, unless I've got confused (but the wordplay seems too tight for that to be the case)
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hotelwhiskey7

19th July 2020, 03:09
Re 18 - Wiktionary (but not Chambers) has the first word of the clue as a noun as well as an adjective.
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quisling

19th July 2020, 08:59
Agreed about 18r, asv. Trembling or shuddering might have been better, without harming the surface much.
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lumen

19th July 2020, 10:08
drxx at post 31, can you give me a little more help to find the nautical word for secure?
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