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Hi Lumen,

It was me who completely misunderstood what the 90 degree symmetry :-(

As lumen explains, the key is the specific crossword meaning of ‘thematic’ - the grid will be peppered with references in answers and sometimes clues to the theme, often cryptically hinted at by the title, meaning the clashing cells are of a kind (days of Christmas, knights of the Round Table, celestial bodies or whatever).

So your tale might be joined by corset and tonk, which don’t make a theme, until you realise - the ‘pdm’ - that the title Love all means that it’s all about ducks, obviously, and all your other clashes suddenly fall into place.

Grateful for all your help . Promise this will be my last offering.. so am I right to think that any answer to the clues which are more than nine letters must include one or more clashes to allow it to fit the grid?

And can anyone give me any hint at all as to how to start to find where the clashes might be... I presume that some clues might just intersect in the normal way?

Does one need to find all the answers to the clues before attempting the jigsaw? Could someone explain how to get a toe-hold at least, finding a position on the grid, which you can deduce must be right using a real answer to the puzzle if that’s acceptable on this forum.

I began by taking a chance that at least one of the 9 letter answers was unaffected by clashes, which proved to be the case and, as there's only a couple of places it could, that was my way in.

As has already been said, if you are new to the Listener then this is perhaps not the best one to start with, they're not all this difficult, but I applaud you for trying.

valitudinarian, most people on this forum have reported needing to solve more than half the clues before attempting to fill the grid. (I was no exception.) Once you have a sufficient number, then you might concentrate on the 9-letter answers as brendan suggests. I had a very good idea which one would go in the lower of the two possibilities, by looking at the last letter of each of the 9-letter answers.

I've made a fair bit of progress with this. Got half the cells with clashes now, so I think I know where they should all be.
Could I please have a hint for "Imaginative qualities..." Thanks!

Hi Abicoop,

3 letters "old-fashioned" (way) of saying "are" + single letter "singular" + 5 letters "efforts" - definition is "imaginative qualities"

Needless to say it clashes

Abicoop,

After the "old-fashioned are" is a single letter for "and" (I didn't think this could be right but it's in Chambers) and then it's "singular" etc..

Sorry Abicoop,

I messed up the first part of that parsing relating to the "are old-fashioned and singular", so just ignore my previous posts.

Brendan, I can't find anything in Chambers that equates I to and. I have the iPhone app and the old CD-ROM, and spent ages trying to chase the I/and thing down with no success. Perhaps I haven't looked hard enough?

I think the italicised "and" is significant, and I read it as "are old fashioned" = ART, and singular for "are" = IS, plus the rest.