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Thanks jbird. I have had a go at filling the grid and it almost works, but I seem to have a problem with the letter D. My clue answers contain five D's, whereas my grid contains three, all of which are cross-checked by other entries, indicating to me that I should have six D's in my answers. In my grid there are D's on rows 3, 6 and 11. Is there another somewhere else?

0pt0
.... and the unclued answer at 9 has a D as well

Thanks jbird. I think I see the un-cled answer now, which would resolve another problem with my grid. I shall re-check the whole thing tomorrow.

Duplicate Thread by Otempora

After an epic struggle, I have virtually completed this. I say "virtually", because I can't for the life of me see the entry for 11 across. I have (I think) 5 of the 6 letters, but don't know what the 4th letter is: there's only one word in Chambers - a Shakespearean one - that fits,
but I can't seem to justify it with a part from another clue answer. Or maybe I have all sorts of other entries wrong?

Reply by Quisling

Otempora, I think you’ve unwittingly started a new thread on Listener 4913. There’s already one on this page. Norah dislikes duplication, so I hope she’ll append this one to that. The answer is Shakespearean, and the last three letters are the end of the unclued entry in 9a. Only its first letter appears in its grid entry

Otempora - 23a and 26a both produce the required missing letter (the other one goes at the end of 4 and a half down).

Jbird @ 93 - this is why I dislike this puzzle. You have deduced 3 things, 2 of which are wrong and one is undeducible.

Much like iratus' incorrect earlier reply to me when I said there were over 100 possible entries for 25a and he incorrectly said there were 4. That's only if you assume there are only 2 parts to 25a. It was possible to make a lot of progress with this puzzle if you made assumptions that weren't warranted by the preamble.

I wrote "Under the assumption that 25a is made up of two parts, there are are four possible grid entries". This is entirely correct.

By all means call me out if I say something wrong.

I don't want to reveal myself as an amateur, but I approach these puzzles with a fair amount of 'well, it could be this, let's see what it gives me'. I looked for two entries because I couldn't imagine how to calculate the possibilities for three. Perhaps that's my limitation. At the end, it became a jigsaw.

I still lean 'unreasonably difficult' (a high compliment). I see the arguments, though.

Thanks again jbird: all done now.

I started this on the train yesterday afternoon without any reference materials and finished it this morning. It didn't take me any longer than some other puzzles. But it was quite different, whether unreasonably or not.
Firstly, it seemed to break the guidance given to setters. I reckon there are more than a normal number of unchecked cells (48) and the unclued entries compound that difficulty. Add to that the entries pieced together from disparate letters from several answers with 'the first part entered somewhere', and in practice, although it was possible to start filling the grid before solving all the clues, the lack of cross checking meant that most clues had to be nearly or entirely cold-solved. Is it actually a crossword in the normal sense?
Secondly, I wasn't enamoured of either the quality of the clues, nor the entry method. There were few elegant clues but an over-reliance on proper names, both in the clues and the answers. I would pick out the random Irish name and the French river that this much-travelled, one-time resident of France had not come across.
Considering the few constraints to the placement of particular letters, it did not seem to me to be a particularly well constructed grid. The grouping of unclued entries was particularly unhelpful. It was certainly a pain keeping track of odds and ends of letters.
Overall, I felt it was just all too contrived and in some respects not in the spirit of the guidance that the essence of a Listener crossword is 'elegance and subtlety of theme and clueing, not difficulty per se' and without 'gratuitous obstacles'.
Obviously the editors felt it was a worthy Listener crossword, and several contributors to this forum enjoyed it, but personally I prefer something more entertaining.

I think Mack is being a little unkind to the setter, who must have spent many hours compiling this puzzle.

I thought it was an excellent and most enjoyable Listener and I have marked it as a potential POTY.