Am I missing something obvious?I'm looking for a thematic connection for the five-letter entries.If someone could point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.
There is usually a single Listener thread, started on the Friday night (the puzzle comes out at 4pm on Friday online) or Saturday. Always best to look there, though they tend to stop short of giving the game away completely (though barely in this case). If you google Listener Answerbank followed by the name of the puzzle you'll always find it. Hope this helps
The common link between all the 5-letter entries, and the title minus the Y, is that they can all be preceded by the same 4-letter prefix - in the case of the title this produces a word of direct relevance to the theme (not the theme word)