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I think it was perfectly fair. There have been plenty of other Listeners where a lot of cold solving was required before you could do much, if any, grid filling. I think I had cold solved ~60% and was able to fill in most of the bottom (the wiggles were really helpful), so I did not find it true that I needed to cold solve almost everything. In any case, cold solving may not be to your liking, but that doesn't make it unfair.

I would say, however, that if the theme is really the 5,5 phrase, then the final step is not thematic. Unless I do not understand (certainly possible) the theme is a two-word phrase (5,5); the unclued octagons consist of two synonyms for the first word (call them a1 and a2) and two for the second (b1 and b2). I do not see how a1 goes with b1 any more than it goes with b2; same for a2.

Then we apply the 6,5,5 match rule to come up with the 4 square entries - and I see no thematic connection (or really ANY connection) other than they are the only words that possibly result from the 6,5,5 machine.

So I think I would rate it very highly for giving us a quite difficult challenge that was very satisfying to solve, but thematically was somewhat lacking.

Finally got there! 70% cold solved by Saturday lunch, 90% solved by noon today - but some devilish (unsolved) clues in key areas meant that I really struggled to start to fill the grid. Capa had me confused for hours, so my pencil is blunt, my eraser is all but finished, and all my whiskey is gone!! The 16 letter phrase confused me for ages until I finally got Capa to fit, and then I began to make some real progress. I thought the bottom right hand corner was the easiest starting point, but there were so many permutations beyond that that I began to despair. Once solved, all clues seemed fair, it's just that some were so devious that they were unsolvable, to me at least, until the grid began to populate. 29 typifies this, as the answer fits the definition, but I still can't parse it. This has to be one of the toughest solves in a long time, as filling the grid was as difficult as solving the clues. Congratulations Sabre, another tour de force.

planks, if you are still stuck email me at patmark291atyahoodotcom and I will give you a useful link

Gitto:

COMPLIANCE = C is in Chambers. After that 29 is straightforward.

Still persevering...stuck on these please:
18. President's denied front seats
20. Movable bridge open to view across river
28 Silly chap is hugging bears

Thanks for any help with these

18: The current President is missing his head
20: Open to view is a 4-letter word that also means nude
28: The answer is hidden in the clue (i.e. 'bears' means 'contains' here)

Buzzb, your comments on thematic coherence echo my feelings when I got to the end. To me it's a slight weakness, though many will relish the additional puzzle of getting the 'matched' pairs. I was also slightly disappointed that one half of the pairs were figurative, so didn't really match the first word in the phrase to be written under the grid. That may have been a deliberate choice or perhaps the numerous other examples of the word were not susceptible to the three-word phrase.

S_pugh, I'm puzzled by your comment at #106. I thought I'd made it clear that I'd finished several hours previously (#94). I was merely commenting on the double unch and the fact that the matching pair could have been any one of four words, so each of those would need subjecting to the thematic treatment to be sure that there was a unique entry. I'm sure the editors did that checking, and you appear to have done so since you were confidant that there is no alternative. I was satisfied with what I found, especially as it was thematically similar to the adjacent octagon, so I wasn't prepared to spend a minute longer on it.

Many thanks buzzb....none of them too hard..should have seen them!

Quite a loose definition of crossword all these wiggles, squares and hexagons? Congrats if you finish it

Thank you for the offer keepatit. I 've tried every number possible which has yielded one of the thematic pairs, the other one is currently gobbledygook. I think that like Eric Morecambe's piano playing I have all the right letters, but not necessarily in the right order. I think I'll give it a rest now as it has ceased to be fun, maybe later - much later, I'll have another look.