Listener 3995: Past Times by MynoT

[midazolam]

This should pass the time (and 2 offerings from MynoT in a week!

here is the link

[Clamzy]

Golgonooza:- You are indeed missing something. It doesn't matter that the letters are jumbled and don't crosscheck. Ring eight can only contain letters which are common to the six answers you have found in each quadrant. In some order they are of course common to the theme words also.
Good luck

[Rapparee]

Golgonooza
The letters entered in any one quadrant are common to all nine radials feeding into it. These occur in no special order in the answers to the jumbled clues but for the three thematic entries they must be in the correct order. That means they are the identical endings for those entries.

A further hint as to the nature of the theme can be gleaned from the title. Once you have deduced this theme you will be away like a scalded cat, I guarantee you. I was lucky enough to spot this early on after a little trial and error rearranging the letters in one quadrant until I got the word-ending. Coupled with this was the freshness in my mind of the word I used in a previous thread. Suffice it to say this was an attempt at sarcasm in relation to seasonality!

[cluelessJoe]

Well, I'd be interested to learn whether anyone solved this one without early identification of the theme words? All those posting help seem to point to spotting the common letters in ring 8 & working from there. I spent quite some time looking at possible letter positions in the jumbles in an attempt to identify what ring answers might fit, but this was so much easier to do once the theme words were in place.
I reckon this was almost unfathomable without first identifying and placing those theme words.

[Clamzy]

Well Joe as I said earlier I didn't spot the theme words from ring eight. I cold solved all the radials and most of the ring clues. Next I filled in ring 8 as I advised Golgonooza above. I was able to fill in some of the jumbles by using checking letters from the radials - ring 2 being a big help. In solving some radials certain proper nouns kept cropping up in my searches.
These words were unfamiliar to me so I looked them up and BINGO!, especially when the endings matched letters in ring 8.

[Philoctetes]

Now that it is just about too late to get an answer in, could anyone tell me if there is any significance in the shape. Or is it just designed to be able to get the twelve key words in in a relatively symmetrical way?

[Deviant]

There is a significance to the shape - combined with the title, you may be able to guess the theme, though it wasn't until I put the letters I had of the first twelfth into TEA and saw one of the possible anagrams that I saw it all fall into place :)