Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

The clues...
Requests for help should normally include the clue itself, the number of letters in the answer, and details of any you already have. Any special instructions or additional information, common in Listener puzzles, should also be included.
Hints only, please, no answers.

The theme...
Requests for help with the theme may also be made here. The Forum's aim is to give a pointer in the right direction, a little nudge - definitely not anything that would spoil the puzzle for other solvers.
Any posts which, even inadvertently, reveal too much of the theme are likely to be removed.

The Listener is a unique puzzle and should be treated with respect.

That was tough! Clever puzzle, requiring more than one PDM to get through it.

or a nightmare - depending on which way you look at it

Bit early in the year to try and get the all-correct numbers down isn’t it ;)

Cracking puzzle, beautifully constructed. As said before, multiple pdms en route

oh dear, way beyond this solver. I always feel humbled when this kind of thing turns my brain to jelly.

This is turning into another cold solve nightmare. Exactly (24) clues solved and the beginning of a grid but it must be wrong as some of my longer answers have nowhere to go. Things are not helped by a distinctly unhelpful preamble and some VERY difficult clues - and there seems no consistency (regards to length wrt entry) to the answers I have eked out so far. No PDMS and only 5 of the extra words is not helping. Time to retreat and look again tomorrow. We complain when it is too easy or too hard, but it isn't a true listener unless it is fiendishly difficult - and this meets that criteria by a country mile (IMHO).

Still a long way to go - but I started by getting the grid. With one exception it was pencilled in in about 20 minutes. Having 90 degree symmetry made the task easier than it first appeared. Having that made fitting in the clues I solved a good start. Still have well over half of them to solve however.

I'm glad I am not alone in finding this tough. I am just recovering from what may well have been Covid and wondered if brain fog was the problem. It seems not, which is at least something.

Three hours after my last post it was finally finished - and very well worth most of a Saturday. One quibble though: the 247 clue is the most GWIT one I can ever recall. Without 2 of the checking letters it would not yield. Every clue should be solvable on its own, even if it's extremely hard. This one isn't. So only 99.9%, 'Eck.