Listener 4502: Never-Ending?

[Alekhine]

This is curious.

All done, all seems OK ... and yet I am a letter out in the endgame.

I'll assume that I have made a small error. Perversely, I hope that I have and that there isn't a problem here.

[olichant]

Sorry - I misspelt biased. I accept it’a not acceptable to post something grumpy (which I didn’t mean in a bad-spirited way) only to make a basic spelling error.

[Scorpius]

Fortunately I downloaded the puzzle after the error had been corrected so I didn't experience the agonising that some others did.

It's one of those puzzles where I find my appreciation of it increases the more I consider it. The thematic items are neatly integrated in the grid, and solvers are led to the second work via a gimmick that probably presented the setter with some challenges but worked well. I didn't experience any problems arising out of ambiguities in the extra letters or extra words, and that's not always the case. I agree 9d is problematic, but I didn't find any others were.

There's one other feature of the grid that I admire, but I won't be specific since it'll give something away.

[sunny-dave]

Apropos of nothing in particular - I do think that 1A 36A would have been a cracking band name.

[BobMinor]

Crikey, I shall keep my mouth shut in future.

[olichant]

Sorry BobMinor - I didn’t mean to sound grumpy. I may have expressed myself poorly after a long day, and sorry if so. It wasn’t intended.

[BobMinor]

That's kind of you, Olichant, but please don't worry - I'm not really so thin-skinned! I'm sorry too that my original comment caused offence, which also certainly wasn't intended. I don't comment on this forum very often, so perhaps I have things still to learn about its etiquette. And we're both agreed on the excellence both of the puzzle and the source material.

[olichant]

Thanks, BobMinor. We can certainly agree on the source material in particular. One of the things I love about the Listener is how it either introduces me to new ideas/themes or, as here, prompts me to revisit something I already loved.

[Liathach]

I was fortunate in being in Italy until Monday and so when I printed this out yesterday the offending clue had been corrected. Very much in my comfort zone with this theme. A tight and unambiguous puzzle; thanks to KevGar.