Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Thanks, Quisling. While I'm quite happy to accept that the easier puzzles are a good way to draw in new solvers, I also feel that more experienced solvers should be able to air their views too. The Listener solvers here (on the Forum) are seldom, if ever, sniffy - but finding a puzzle too easy is just as valid as finding a puzzle too difficult..

,I assume the 'you don't appreciate comments such as "ridiculously easy" ' part was meant for Stephen?

It was, Malone, my apologies. I was about to post my reply to him and then saw yours, so I altered the beginning, but forgot to change horses in midstream!

Thanks, Quisling. When some of the easier Listeners come along, I often feel a little bit of sympathy for the more experienced solvers - while reasonably happy myself!

I've only been doing the Listener for 3 to 4 months, and even I thought this one was very easy for a Listener. It was the earliest I ever finished. By easy, I mean the clues themselves primarily. I thought the overall puzzle structure was good. As Malone wrote, this is only an observation. There are many puzzles out there, and I have been considering it a badge of honor to complete a Listener. That loses its luster if they are too easy.

To clarify my earlier comment - I am not against an easier puzzle occasionally (although I may be disappointed by the lack of work out). I certainly would not be in favour of it losing it's reputation by generally 'dumbing-down'...

I’ve also only attempted the Listener for the last couple of months, largely encouraged by those here, and have been more than happy to come unstuck and ultimately fail. It’s all part of the process. I’m also struggling to play some Chopin Nocturnes and failing there also! By which I mean I don’t need an easy Chopin piece to get me hooked (if that makes any sense)

It would be interesting to know if users of this forum think that Listeners have become less difficult in recent years.
I have been attempting them for a few years and I certainly do them quicker now than when I first started - but this is to be expected I suppose.
I now have access to the Times Puzzle Club and have attempted some older puzzles. They do at first sight seem harder but that may be partly due to alterations in style and conventions over the years.
What do others think?

I'll take you up on that one, Smithsax. I've been doing Listeners for about 25 years, and in the last ten I've hardly missed one (except the numericals). I solve them much faster, on average, than I did when I started, but that's not surprising as I like to think I've got better at solving crossword clues over the years. There would be something wrong if that wasn't the case! So I'm not really in a position to judge whether the clueing side of things has got easier in recent years, though my gut feeling is that it hasn't.

However I would say that on the thematic side, there has been a gradual shift towards simpler implementations of themes. I couldn't track down the Dimitry puzzle mentioned earlier on this thread, but I found the solution notes on the Listener site and just reading those was enough to me have to go and lie down. If memory serves (and I can't count on that) there were far more puzzles back then which required complicated manoeuvres to fill the grid than there are now. The only two which belonged to that category last year were those by Sabre and Harribobs (both of which got a lukewarm reception here and elsewhere). The norm for puzzles in recent times is for a relatively straightforward method of entering answers, and any stumbling blocks tend to be in the form of a leap of faith in the endgame (such as the bee colony puzzle and the recent Elgin, which is still live.

Personally I don't mind the increase of "entry-level" puzzles; I've reached a point in life when even in lockdown I don't want to spend hours on one puzzle every week. That won't be a popular view, and I can understand that. I agree with Malone (as I invariably do) at 29 that there's nothing wrong with posters expressing disappointment at a lack of challenge, but at the same time I think we should be careful of being too dismissive to avoid putting new solvers off coming to this forum.

Apologies for even worse long-windedness than usual.

It’s quite understandable that some will find some puzzles easier than others, and there’s no reason not to say so EXCEPT we could perhaps bear in mind why some of our fellow solvers come to a forum like this. If someone has got thoroughly stuck with a particular puzzle and comes here hoping for a hint or a pointer or two and finds post after post of people seemingly trying to outdo each other on saying just how amazingly stupendously ridiculously easy this one was and it only took them half an hour, or ten minutes, or they’d finished it before they’d even got their pencil out, or whatever, it can be pretty intimidating and demoralising. Brave is the solver who asks for a hint after such a chorus of self-congratulation. That’s just worth keeping in mind.

PS on the other hand this isn’t always a bad thing: I got stuck on this one myself, and came here hoping for the teeniest of hints or pointers and on seeing the exclamations of how amazingly easy it apparently was I thought I must have missed something, went back and had another look, and managed to carry on and get to the end without any hints :-)