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Thank you for confirming that one, hamishsoup - I have to say it was still niggling me, even after all of this time (and I'd got to quite like the alternative, fully vocal, possibility).
I enjoyed the blog on the 15squared site but I no longer contribute anything there, so I'll take this opportunity to thank you for a very enjoyable puzzle. I'm surprised you haven't taken more credit for the clever ambiguities throughout the puzzle - it seemed, to me, to be a very carefully tailor-made affair (I think you might be being too modest).

You're very welcome!
I really would love to take more credit, but I'm not sure that it was intentional! But I *did* try to make sure that there weren't too many 'a's and 'I's as single words which would have been horribly confusing.
H

seems a long time since I started this thread and it's certainly attracted a lot of people - like myself - seeking help. Though it was a bastard to solve, it certainly provided a lot of pleasure in the aaah moments and I'd like to add my thanks to HS for his ingenuity and for his availability to discuss his work. I had thought, on first looking at it, that - like those puzzle messages with letters removed - it would be easy to read. But I soon realised how many different words could be made from any (or many) collections of consonants. And it was all too easy to go for the obvious and not be able to see the least likely. Reminded me of a maxim we used to teach acting students in how to use language - the vowels create the emotion and the consonants give you the definition in which it occurs.