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Tough but enjoyable. I wondered if they were giving the new stat man an easy start by minimising submissions!

Re the "echo", there is now a correction printed on the home page of listenercrossword.com, as follows:
Correction
The first clue for Listener 4849 should read “Spur in Death Valley kills shade, shield part of red boulder that’s not led out water, deserted”.

I have decided that I was just being thick yesterday as the order of the products is blindingly obvious!!!

twit @62, thanks for that. The extraordinary contortions are the more unsatisfactory because it seems like the only purpose is to leave something for the next clue in the sequence to do. And apart from the cryptic, what does '... that's not led out water' mean?
I enjoyed winkling out the clues, but was very disappointed by essentially a complete absence of endgame or revelation. Two names in a grid. And why are they described as contrasting?

Jamesm, I think one had a gift that the other didn't, despite consulting someone who did and ignoring it - at their cost.

But I could be wrong. 😁

Thanks. So there's something in the text that doesn't affect anything in the puzzle? That's rather how I felt about all the thematic material. I would have found the puzzle exactly the same had the revealed list been Liverpool's XI from Sunday.
There was a similarly themed Independent puzzle by Tees last year in which the sections were given as solutions. It went down like a lead balloon. No doubt it's a fascinating work if you know it, but simply spelling it out as if that's an end in itself falls a little short, imo.

I thought this was a cracking start to the year. Thanks, Priest!

Duplicate Post by Dim

My New Year resolution is not to give up so quickly. It paid off here given that I was very much at an impasse at one stage but kept at it.
Happy that the endgame was easy after so much effort to get there.

Have ground my way to a full grid. Have about a dozen I can't parse. I have the theme but the products dont seem to exactly match the 'key phrases' in the version I have accessed.

Not my cup of tea at all.

Finally got there. Fair enough in the end, although still dislike the over complexity of the clues.

2 parsings left unsolved - wordplay for 35 and 31

Thanks