Listener 4636 - Monkey Business By Skylark

[upsetter]

A favourite book yet we struggled to find the activities.

We ended up having to download the novel and search for the most likely guesses.

Great fun, thanks Skylark.

[NickorWan]

I did the wrong thing here and looked up the names as soon as I twigged the theme from the clue gimmick. I immediately wondered why I had done that as of course the rest of the puzzle became so much easier, which is a bit silly as I look forward to the challenge!

I am not familiar with the theme, but I didn’t find it difficult to guess what the three activities were.

Good fun, thanks very much, Skylark

[Philoctetes]

A favourite of mine, too. I recalled the characters and two of the activities, but a racking of brains worked wonders.
Does anyone still read it? I do hope so!

[Hagen]

To my shame I've never read the book, though the quotation is familiar as we had a puzzle with the same theme quite recently (Inquisitor, I think). I went to Wiki for the characters which, as Nick found, made the grid fill that bit too easy. I spent almost as long trying to find reliable confirmation of one of the activities (presumably the variant spelling) as I did on the rest of the puzzle!

Not very difficult, but good fun all the same. Thank you Skylark.

[pushmi-pullyu]

Great fun, and I was glad of a quick finish so that I could return to the fiendish Cam puzzle.

[Cruncher]

Like others I "cheated" and used the quotation to fill the perimeter which rather accelerated the gridfill. I confess I didn't find all the clues that easy but I did find a useful online glossary to confirm the activities.