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Well... phew...all done at last - what a workout!

Very well constructed and challenging to the last drop, at several levels of thematic crypticism - thanks, Elfman.

Kitsune, Smithsax, ref #89, #90 - I really can't see any ambiguity in the cells to be highlighted, given both thematic constraints.

Looking back through some of the posts in this thread is a bit like swimming among a shoal of red herrings...challenging to everyone, I think?

Buddy’s post @61 was also far too explicit, in my view. I know people ask for help, and others want to be accommodating, but both posts are clearly against the posting guidelines

Quisling - I agree - and #101

Malone, if you're watching this, could you have a look at #61, #101,and #103 and adjudicate please. and if you think they go too far, liaise with Norah over censoring them and/or application of the dreaded ferula?

Morning, Quixote (and Quisling).

My 'adjudicating' powers are the same as yours! Because I start the thread and mention the Hints and Gentle Nudges, I sometimes feel obliged to remind solvers/helpers of this - but that's only if I happen to read the thread and come across anything worth mentioning. Other members can - and do - occasionally chip in too. It's always tricky, of course - 'hints' can be seen as virtually giving away the answer, 'gentle nudges' can be anything but. On the whole, I feel the threads work reasonably well - and far better than having endless discussions on how big a hint can or should be.

Having said that, I agree that #61 was overly revealing - if I'd seen it at the time, I'd probably have queried it being left. The other posts didn't bother me - yes, they were fairly generous, but the puzzle had been around for days by that point. The seasoned solvers had probably finished long before that, less seasoned solvers might have appreciated the generous hints.

Quixote, thanks for your email relating to post 103 but you didn't mention post 61, today is the first time that my attention has been drawn to 61 which is strange as it was posted 3 days ago.

Malone, thanks for your post and email, your post sums everything up very neatly, there's not a lot for me to add other than to remind everyone about the content of Post 1 - PLEASE DON'T GIVE TOO MUCH AWAY IN HINTS OR IN NUDGES TOWARDS THE THEME.

I considered all points of view whilst having a shower, I had to stop thinking whilst I freed the water drain, and have decided to take no action in this particular case.

It is now Thursday so The Listener diehards will have finished the crossword long ago, the next Listener is out tomorrow, and I think too much time has elapsed since post 61 to take action there. As Malone says, the slightly more generous hints might have helped the less seasoned solvers.

Malone, Norah - thanks for looking at this so thoroughly - (Norah - your revelation of the condition you did your cogitating in is perhaps too much information in itself..).

Malone, I realise that you're 'just one of us' - but perhaps prima inter pares, as you've undertaken disciplinary comments in the past, which have been welcome, and I see you as a sort of classroom assistant to Norah, who on her own admission is not a solver and may sometimes miss the nuances of overly-revealing posts.
I hope that's not patronising either of you.

I'm happy with Norah's assessment and conclusion, and the reminder of the 'rule' about not giving too much away.

Thanks Quixote. I don't think it's fair to Malone to call her "classroom assistant to Norah", that is blatantly untrue as it makes me sound more highly qualified than her😂

I depend on Malone but also several others in the Forum from whom I seek advice and guidance, as you rightly say I am not a solver and what I know about cryptics would fit on a pinhead.

By and large the single Listener thread potters along quite nicely, with occasional reminders from me on not giving too much away, long may it last.

Norah, thanks.

Quixote, I don't think you were being patronising, but I would rather my title was CEOC (Chief Execuive Officer, Crosswords). Norah spent so long trying to ensure that the Listener thread worked as well as possible, pleased as many solvers as possible, that I was quite vigilant in the early days. My little 'Maybe too much information?' posts were intended to remind people of the 'Gentle Nudges...' instructions and to keep us on the nice, even, no spoilers path. That input, from me or anyone else, isn;t needed very often - thank goodness.

The hints/level of help given in hints, doesn't bother me anywhere near as much. This is, in part, a reaction tio the 'it's the Listener, no help should be given' posts that featured for a while!

What a pleasantly measured discussion, which pretty much sums up the attitude of most contributors here. May I comment though that had some of the more generous hints been given earlier (say over the weekend) then a few hackles may have been raised.

Finally finished after a very long time pondering over how to fit in the second songwriter's surname, before finally discovering that I had fallen into the trap of writing down the incorrect spelling that appears one of the Google responses (as mentioned in one of the posts above that I hadn't scrolled down far enough to read... oy veh!)
In contrast to quite a lot of those who posted here, I got the song fairly early on: it may be a generational thing - I'll be a septuagenarian come next January ... if I last that long! I got two of the first set and three of the second, but got bogged down in the NW and SE quadrants. Having put it to one side, I didn't get round to resuming work on it until late on Friday afternoon, but with a little help from the forum I got over the line...just in time for a light sleep before trotting off to the newsagent's for the next instalment.
See you in the next thread!