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 additional information or special instructions, common in Listener puzzles, should also be included.
Hints only, please, no answers.

The theme...
Help with the theme may be sought here. The assistance given should be of a fairly gentle nature - just a nudge, a pointer in the right direction, and certainly not anything so revealing that it spoils the puzzle for other solvers. Any posts which, even inadvertently, give away too much are likely to be removed.

There are many regulars on the Listener threads, but newcomers are always welcome.

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

PS Another busy day for me, so another early thread from me!

We appear to have done everything required without distinguishing between Sets C and D, or indeed finding the Set B letters.

I'm puzzled too, everything's done but I'm struggling to find the connection to 1d. Hard to keep track of the complicated set of gimmicks (but an interesting challenge, I think).

All done, very enjoyable.
Drxx - too early to give too detailed a comment - but the replacement letters that you use to change the 'A-clue' answers create a thematic word, that you can apply to one of 1d's works.
Woodlouse - the extra letters in B-clues distinguish between C and D, as the preamble states. Have fun interpreting what the d--answers yield - took us a while!

Thanks J bird 1954 vintage here (too?)

We've got D1 to D6 by looking at the grid. Still trying to avoid the drudgery!

Having spent some time looking through a very long list of works (where it isn't featured at all) I found the connection in the other wiki entry.
Quite a clever puzzle - especially the, ''what may be said to indicate...'' part.

All done except I do not understand the title.

I think it's very clever, but if you get the letters from the A clues and make the substitutions, you can finish without figuring out which of the other clues are B, C or D, much less how to use B's message to distinguish C from D or figure out the cleverness of the D's. I think they should have required the solver to write the B message and the what the D's lead to under the grid.

Does 8d have any thematic import?

I found this quite tough. Unlike some, I needed to sort out the Bs, Cs and Ds to finish the grid, having been defeated by most of the clues for the NW corner.

No idea whether (or how) 8d is connected to the theme, but the title connects to the first part of the D answers.

Nice application of the theme. Thank you, Tringa.

Separately, can anyone tell me who [tba] was, in #4837? I thought that the name would be revealed with the solution.

My impression was that allowing for further hair loss in the grid would reveal the name, but I couldn't find a setter's name or any smart words to point to one.

rhsl - if you go to the Listener. Ross word website, you will see that [tba] is a collaboration between two setters Arcadia and Cagey

[tba] is their pseudonym