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For me there are similarities with J.S.Bach here. Some of his work shows amazing technical prowess, but isn't terribly enjoyable to listen to. For me this puzzle and some others in recent times fall into the same category, and become joyless slogs. I feel the same about today's Inquisitor😒

I have a lot of sympathy with your feelings there, bobbycollins (especially regarding the latter).

Hopefully a more accessible EV tomorrow? Last week's was a cracker.

I have resorted to an old Listener from the archive. "Surprise" by Alberich from 2007.

Full grid, author translator, world, shading indicator all in order and final letter ringed to complete the thematic set. I’m struggling a bit with interpreting the shading indicator though. I have a notion that it means 6, 7, 1 in contiguous cells. If that’s right it would resolve the unches in 12a.

Certainly a challenge! Some very chewy clues with the additional layer of jumbling to manage. A lot of rubbing out and reordering for me! But thank you to Raven for keeping me engaged for several hours of quite strenuous mental exercise.

If your shading involves only 14 letters then you're stopping far short of the shading requirement, but it does resolve the area you mention... (perhaps I've misunderstood your post. jack aubrey?).

No, drxx; you haven’t misunderstood. Back to the drawing board then!

I finally have the area requiring shading - not sure I understand the word for the shading but I'll worry about that with fresh eyes tomorrow. I am totally stumped by 21d, I have (I think) 4 confirmed letters and a fifth cell with 2 possibilities - but I just can't work it out. If anyone can offer an oblique hint without giving too much away, I'd be very grateful.

I'm at the Jack Aubrey stage as well - in fact I was there at midnight, but various ball-related activities have kept me away. The Preamble seems to suggest that X - 4 letters (I don't want to give away what X is) are involved: does that mean X - 4 actual letters, or one example of each letter among the X - 4? I suspect I shall be highlighting X/2 - 2 though.

Having taken another look at the relevant quote, I now understand the instruction for shading - still haven't got 21d, but I am amazed to get this far. I have been ready to throw in the towel several times.

planks - the def is the first three words ignoring capitals and italics but not that helpful.

Wordplay is more straightforward though