Crossword Help Forum
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No answers - or even hints - here, but plenty of room for thanks, appreciation etc.

Nice to have a straightforward and speedy circular grid for a change. I enjoyed this one although found that the quote was almost the first thing in for me and so the rest was just a case of filling in the gaps with no metagame left for the end. Thanks The Ace of Hearts.

I agree absolutely with NXE above. I'm not quite sure why we needed the extra letters to spell out a definition we didn't have to do anything with, other than to make the solve last longer?

If you can make educated guesses at the 5-6 words in the extra letters message then you get a free extra letter to help with the unsolved clues. Helped me at any rate

That's exactly what I did tatters. Without knowing those letters I do not think I could have finished this - or at least not in 8 hours, more like 8 days.

Thank you AoH. Almost a pity that the quote could be obtained so quickly and, hence, its author. Thereafter, a bit of a slog.

I didn't find it too much of a slog - & I did take nearly 4 hours out to watch and listen to an opera relay from Munich this evening.

What I find difficult is the final checking to make sure you've entered everyting correctly because nothing makes immediate sense to the eye (apart, of course from the perimeter and row 3). I thought "shall I bother?" but I did and, as I went through all of the radials, I discovered that I'd got 2 letters in row 5 wrong - goodness only knows how - affecting 6 radials; also, perhaps more understandably, I'd translated a sloppily written R into a K.

So a bit of correction fluid on my final version but at least I've avoided this morning's mistake of scanning my Spectator and emailing it off without the necessary word being shaded. Oh, the shame!

Thanks Malone and tatters : )