Crossword Help Forum
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Meursault, the Crossword Solver forum is blocking my reply to you, as it has done in the past, even though there is nothing abusive in my message. I will provide you with an explanation quoting your own words at some point in the future.

Norah, thank you for your interventions. Hopefully everything calms down now.

Dryden, to help with peace and reconciliation, I'll relate to you a recent occurrence. The fraud dept of my bank caused me a big problem a while back. My complaint was addressed to the CEO. He was the one ultimately responsible for the poor service I'd received. It wan't a vendetta against the CEO.

Having started late and done a bit of origami to get the heptagon, I am rather confused regarding the "left-overs". Do I just have to cut and juggle until I can make a second heptagon ? What is worrying me is that the first letter of the thematic title, although on the edge, is firmly part of my first heptagon.
Thanks.

you fit the bits together to make a (symmetrical ) decagon.... (3 rectangular cut out bits reassemble into another rectangle which forms the middle of the decagon .... the other bits go on either side ..erase the hero's name (one column in the left part of the decagon) highlight the new love (after changing a letter) in the next column...and highlight the place / theme ..its in a couple of rows near the bottom

Thank you very much, Bunty. I will have another go at the reassembling.

Hope you've got it by now samovar, but if not...

When you have cut out the first heptagon ( five cuts following the grid lines and two diagonal cuts ), you should have two rectangles and two triangles left over, all four being of equal area.

Three of these four left over bits contain the 10 letters which form the thematic title and once you have got them adjacent to each other you are very nearly there.

An enjoyable puzzle, but i wouldn't have got the heptagons without the help of this forum, and therefore not have the enjoyment of completion. I would not send in any answers unless it was all my own work, as i think that would be unfair on all the solvers who have done it unaided, and also not give an accurate reflection of the difficulty which the setters deserve. If i had to make one addition to the instructions, i would have stated that the heptagon was symmetric.

On the subject of help, i needed the Wiki entry for the book which i only found after googling Rose Salterne, as i had not read it. That to me is fine, and enabled me to get the other people associated, but i would not have got anywhere without the posts suggesting i look at the first column. I too was caught up in thinking the directions would be NEWS and spent a long time following that theme. I will also happily use the Chambers word completer and anagram solver, since they are only doing more quickly what i used to do with the Chambers Books of words and anagrams. Bradford is also fine with me.

Like with present day pub quizzes, on-line help can lead to cheating, but as the saying goes, you are only cheating yourself.

So sorry, Schorley, I left the puzzle for a few days and have only just seen your post. Thank you very much. I have the theme etc. but I think my origami heptagon might have been too big, so I'm now going to follow your instructions and hope for the best.
Thanks again.