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This cheered me up today. I have been attempting the Listener the last two weeks and although I finished last week's, yesterday's really has me stumped.

Thanks ixion, have it now.

You're right, that's really sweet :-)

29A is puzzling me: I have an answer but can't fit 'Clay' into it. Is the last word really 'in'? It gives me E-S-I for 23D, which doesn't seem to make any sense.

Livs - 29ac - second word is 'in'. Clay with a small c.

Thanks, I was thinking soil types but still can't see it. By my parsing, I'm left with 'glein', of which presumably 1 or 2 letters are spare - but I can't see it.

... and Chambers Word Wizard doesn't have anything for E-S-I.

Last letter is spare. Glei is in Chambers. I assume 23dn is a work by Delibes but I haven't looked it up, it also has a spare letter.

Cheers, m'dear.

I also made up an answer to 23D early on, based on the clue, but it doesn't seem to mean anything and I can't find a work by Delibes that fits those letters. I just started looking for characters in his operas & ballets but really.... it's the end of a warm day and life's too short. I'm not going to send this in (I can't because Guardian Java doesn't work for me), so what does it matter?

I'm making progress into the remaining half, so I'll just carry on with that.

Got it! It's just the French (Delibes?) word for composition.

I think you only need the nationality of Delibes to arrive at the answer - rather than a specific work by him.