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A theme featured by the Listener many times over. Am I correct that only the first cell of the undefined 6 letter answer at 26A requires shading ? The other undefined answers at 15A, 37A & 3D total 20 cells, but then I guess the 5 cells filled with dots also need to be shaded, which then reconciles to five of the 17s.

meursault: Like you, I assume that only the first letter of 26 requires colouring. I also concur with you regarding the three other 17s that you identify; however, the pre-ramble refers to five other 17s. A fair amount of my grid is still blank and I haven't identified any clashes yet, so I can't comment further at the moment.

The five cells with clashes must themselves be one of the 17s. This explains why the setter was so particular that each clash gets replaced by one dot. There is a 17 which refers both to the number 5 and a word for 'dot'.

Ah yes, a citrus fruit is involved. Thanks for enlightening me.

I’m having trouble with 12a, “A single record recalled hosts knowing man’s name (6)”. I have P?IP?I. Perhaps “knowing” is HIP and the definition is “man’s name”, but the result doesn’t look very promising to me. Any hints would be appreciated, please.

This is the answer in the preamble that is entered in a jumble. Def mans name. You have letters in right order so far just follow the word play. It's a common mans name that begins with P if entered unjumbled.

Carpox1, you're right with HIP for 'knowing'. This arrangement of the man's name gives last 3 letters which are a facial feature in twisted form. You'll find the associated 17, I'm sure.

Please could someone give me a hint for 14D. I've finished the puzzle except for this. I can only find one word that fits but it doesn't seem to make any sense.

Annie, 14D is one of the clues with a longer answer than the grid cells, so you can reasonably expect that there's a clash cell somewhere. All the clashes bar one are in the first or last cells of answers. So the clash cell is the first cell of 14D. Go for exactly what the wordplay says : a common word for 'grain' with a common word for 'one particular' inside. By the way, the contents of all the clash cells, prior to replacing by dots, contain words.

Annie, it' s not as hard as it looks but it was my last one too, because I assumed the clash was in a different part of the answer to where it is. Definition is the first word, but not in the culinary sense. Four letter word for grain, with a very common three letter word inside. Good luck!