Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

The clues...
Requests for help should normally include the clue itself, the number of letters in the answer and details of any you already have. Any special instructions or additional information, common in Listener puzzles, should also be included.

Hints only, please, no answers.

The theme...
Help with the theme may be sought here. The help given should be fairly gentle in nature. Aim for just a nudge, a pointer in the right direction - and certainly not anything that would spoil the puzzle for others.
If anyone feels that too much information has been given or that a reply reveals too much, please let the site administrator know - Norah.evoluted@aol.com. Norah very much errs on the side of caution, so anything iffy is likely to be removed.

The Listener is a unique puzzle and should be treated with respect.

Is the second word of 28 extraneous, and isn’t it meant to include the extra letter? Didn’t love the second part of the wordplay, either. Fine puzzle, though.

I think 28 is ok. The wordplay works better with the (adjusted) second word I think

I thought it was pretty good, at the more straight forward end for a circular.

A little more than half done (time out for making and eating dinner - Lentejas con Calabaza accompanied by a rather decent Cape Pinotage) but I have most the external and alk of the internal rings and therefore more than an inkling of the theme. It looked pretty daunting at the outset: random placing of extra letters and so on - not to mention “Ace of Hearts”! - but the consistent direction of radials and an early fix on the perimeter and central entries has tamed it considerably.

I thought that this was a good puzzle. One of those that start out looking extremely tough, until you get into a rhythm and have that PDM.

Thanks, Ace of Hearts. Nice title, too.

Took some work. Some admirably infernal cluing. 16d will stick. Very hard to put down, like all the good puzzles. Many thanks, The Ace of Hearts.

As a relative newcomer, might I ask if, in the circular puzzles, there is a convention regarding the number of common letter entries a shared can comprise?

There should be a 'cell' between 'shared' and 'can' there. I was trying to word the question carefully, but I doubt it contains any great spoiler.

You basically draw a line from the centre of the perimeter cell to the centre of the circle and use any cells it passes through.

In this puzzle, the maximum number of shared clues for a cell is two, but I guess there’s no reason in theory that you couldn’t have three or more.

There is not barnacle. The inner ring cells can often share 4 or more answers. The usual unching rules still apply though, so for any 6 letter entry there should not be more than 2 unchecked cells.

Can anyone help with the basic method of entry. For example I have a 5 letter answer for Radial 18 which I'm sure is correct - so I enter that along with the removed letter - which can occur anywhere among the six letters - including in the perimeter - or is the perimeter entirely separate? Just started and struggling with that.