Listener 4011

[cruciverbali]

This week's challenge is Conflict Resolution by Kea

[Cruncher]

Re 33ac - "sat (sic) on" reversed encloses "without" and "cake"
I too tripped up on the penultimate letter to begin with.

Also spent ages scouring Collins for 19dn until I discovered a free download that does dictionary searches, missing letters and all!

[AHearer]

Thanks, Cruncher: it was the abbreviated abbreviation that was throwing me.

[MartianAlien]

Snap AHearer
Alas, those 3 little words have me perplexed.
Is it so obvious How or Where to you Earthlings?
A symmetrical grid with 4, 6 or 8-letter words, so ....

[spiderFreak]

There have been a few crosswords recently where I've wondered of the setters: how do they do that? Quite a stunning denouement.
The only niggle was 19d not being in Chambers, but as Cruncher says there's a free trial version of Collins available from www.collinslanguage.com.

[Cruncher]

MartianAlien - as has already been said, the second and littlest word is key. If you start with the 8-letter entries you may find that there are fewer options than you might imagine.

[AHearer]

For me the start was a shorter word containing a letter which had to remain unchecked.

[castro221]

Thanks AHearer for that highly elegant suggestion, which saved time. May I say that I only started looking seriously at Listener puzzles earlier this year, but I am lost in admiration for this one. I have never enjoyed a puzzle more!

[jamesah]

I agree with all the above comments- Kea as usual has produced an amazing puzzle. I have a mental block on 14dn which is annoying as it is all otherwise complete. Any hint would be welcome!

[Philoctetes]

Superb construction, as others have said. But stopped from being top notch by 19D. Unless I have missed a meaning, the cluing is weak, and the answer not either in the standard work or really solvable other than through an electronic search (unless one has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the obscure area it comes from)

[Clamzy]

Jamesah,
This is a difficult one to hint at. The definition is the first 6 words, one of which has the misprint.
Rather than try to explain the wordplay, I will be more direct and suggest you think Flying Horse.

[castro221]

Philoctetes, I think you are being a little hard on Kea. Both the wordplay components of 19 dn have the full authority of Chambers (if you look in the right places!) and I think the puzzle is so brilliantly put together that - although I would normally agree with you about non-Chambers words - I am happy to overlook it on this occasion. (I confess it did take me a while to understand the cluing of several answers, notably 1 dn, and including 19 dn, but in the end I wasn't disappointed by any of them).

[MartianAlien]

Cruncher & AHearer
Thanks.
The last stage was fun - a sort of IKEA (sorry!) moment of self-assembly, when I panicked half way, until I realised my error. But perseverance paid off magnificently this time.
Kea - Wow. Incredible. Brilliant.

[Patch49]

I feel a bit like Arthur Dent, asking for the answer to Life the Universe and Everything and receiving a not-very-helpful numerical answer! Think I'll put this puzzle on hold and come back when I've cracked 4012.