Listener 4096: Some Assembly Required by Mr E

[midazolam]

After part of the theme dawned on me half way through filling in the grid, i was thinking we were in for another stale ending. Luckily the ending took a fair amount of decoding, and it was very enjoyable too. Everything fitted together and, with a bit of searching, an entry that I thought was not in Chambers, is in fact in the big red book. Thanks Mr E (although "Indication of Height" will still take a lot of beating)

[contendo]

Finally made it Wednesday a.m. Thank you daagg for offering further help but I'm glad I managed it by slogging away on my own. Certainly a star offering.
By the way how do you get your icon thingy attached to your username?

[x_word_fan]

The images are called Avatars. Look at "my profile" theh click on "edit user details - there is a link there to Gravatar

[IntoTheBlue]

Just to echo other comments about this offering, this is probably the most enjoyable puzzle I've done this year.

Like many other people I had to go away and sleep on it before all became clear this morning. (After several blind alleys where 26 + 26 do not make 52.)

Many thanks Mr E!

IntoTheBlue

[IainGrace]

Agree that it is a challenging and very satisfying puzzle, save that we have still to place the unchecked letters in the grid entries which are not words. Equally we don't know the significance, if any, of the fact that these entries could be words if different letters were available to use. Some oblique hints about that in previous posts, it seems, but we still haven't cracked it. Will keep plugging away.

[teuchter2]

I came back to this one yesterday after a three-day break and got it almost immediately. I agree that this is probably the best one of the year so far - very enjoyable and quite a challenge. IainGrace, you are told that there are two answers which are not words. Think about the total number of unclued entries along with the three normal entries and try to divide them into two groups based on the abnormalities in the other clues.

[Philoctetes]

Phew - started very late and had little time available to devote to this, which didn't help deep thought. I still feel there is a light ambiguity in which letters to place in the second unch in the two non words. But - I AM NOT GOING TO LOSE SLEEP OVER IT!

[IainGrace]

Thanks, teuchter2. Had our PDM before reading your post, as it happens - partly due to reflecting further on earlier posts by daagg. Fitted our last four pieces into the jigsaw very neatly. What an elegant interlocking challenge this puzzle was.