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Meursault, my envoi, with apologies to everyone for cluttering the thread one last time. My comment about a fiefdom clearly struck a nerve, but I was merely trying to contextualise the discussion, not make a personal attack. Nothing in your subsequent posts has changed my view. Your “clever clogs” comment to s_pugh was unkind, and if you dish it out you should be able to take it.

I am aware that you are a frequent poster, giving plenty of help every week, rain or shine, and I know it is much appreciated. My only plea, on behalf of late starters and those who only want nudges, was that help might be proportionate to what is requested so as not to spoil their enjoyment. It’s not about the prize, or being first, or anything else. But that seems to have been too much to ask.

It’s a commonplace to say that it’s only a crossword, and we can all coexist as a happy family. I think not. Our views are too far apart. It’s become clear to me that this forum is far more important to you than to me. I can take it or leave it, and in the circumstances it’s best I leave it. I can’t find a way to delete my account, but have emailed the moderator asking them to do so. Either way, I will not post again.

Finally, I was genuinely sorry to read about your friend with MND. It’s a horrible disease of which I have experience, so my heartfelt sympathies to you and all concerned. Farewell

keepatit - I hope you reconsider your decision to quit the thread. I believe you're a regular contributor whereas I only really get involved when I think a puzzle is unfair.

meursault - I think you make a very good point. My contribution to this thread has been just one answer and a lot of general stuff about censorship. I don't want the Listener thread to become any less helpful than it is, my input doesn't make much difference in that respect - yours certainly does. I'm reasonably happy with things as they are.

Nothing is perfect and, even though it cannot satisfy everyone, I think the Listener thread works well on the whole as it is and any tinkering will just lead to other issues.

Getting the level of a hint just right is a tricky business as you cannot read the mind of a stranger. How long before someone complains that the hint you've given is too explicit and tantamount to giving the answer away, and therefore verboten?

If people want to start a hints only thread they are perfectly entitled to do so but I certainly won't be part of one which tells you what you can and cannot say. It will lead to rival threads and that will confuse people, especially newcomers.

Sorry to see you go, keepatit. Your help has always been well judged, sticking to helpful nudges rather than outright disclosure. I agree with everything you have said at various points in the latter part of this thread. Disclosing five additional unsolicited answers in one early post was as excessive as it was unnecessary, however tough the puzzle, and it breached a rule spelled out by the moderator some time ago.

Keepatit, if I started to let people who I've never met "touch a nerve", I'd be in a sorry place indeed. Most of the people who I meet don't trouble me in that way...you'd know if you met me ! Merely using language you introduced, my dear chap. I know, as you have indicated to me offline, that you deliberately do not contribute all the time. But it'd be a sad thing if you retired completely, merely on the basis of various trivialities and frustrations which got taken out of context this week.

Murphy, my dear old thing, go back and read comment #11. There was a request, though not specific, for help.

Drxx, many thanks for you comments which, while not necessarily taking sides, have at least provided balance.

And this will probably come as a great relief to all, but there is a weather window in the Highlands this weekend and early next week, so I won't be available to assist with 4532 after all. (And it will be a welcome change for me to bandying words on a message board with some rather miserable people.) But we're due an easier one (remember the days when I complained that the Listener had been dumbed down !)...good luck to all.

Funny, I just revisited one of the e-mail addresses I use for people I don't know (I was looking at some e-mails from Keepatit). A salutory warning to anyone who readily gives away their real e-mail address. Which is why there is a forum, and business should not need to be conducted offline. I've deleted one of the letters in the message in order not to offend the forum.

Of course if James showed up at my place he'd soon sing another tune (even though I receive state pension)...sad really that small people use the internet as a device for cowardice, but that's your world now. Get on with it...good luck

EDITED BY ADMIN TO REMOVE EMAIL ADDRESS

Meursault, why don't you just admit that for once you gave away too much? #11 asks for help placing the 12-letter entries; presumably unclued already knew what they were. So why blurt out the answers?

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that in #19 your principal intent with that message was to ask for help, not to give it. So to increase your chance of getting that help, you deliberately gave away those five answers in order to bring others to the same place in the solving that you were stuck at so that they would then help you.

My apologies to Norah. I shouldn't have printed that e-mail. In fact I think I also need to thank you, since I printed the wrong e-mail. So thanks for your patience. But the point was made, it isn't always the best thing to put your e-mail address online.

Somebody else said something, but I forgot what it was. Probably the best thing to do...