Listener Crossword No 4596 - Crnt By Twin

[upsetter]

Great fun.

Still no idea about the title.

[Hagen]

I spent ages fruitlessly staring at the grid last night, then after a good night's sleep the meaning of the instruction dawned on me first thing this morning. Good fun indeed, even though the theme isn't one that's ever interested me - which is probably why I don't understand the title either.

I'm not too keen when extra letters come from two-letter abbreviations or short words with the beginning/end chopped off. There's nothing technically wrong with it but I just find it irritatingly fiddly. Am I alone in this?

[NickorWan]

Yes, good fun, and for once I guessed correctly what the instruction was going to lead us to.

I have never been a fan of the theme either, and I'm also baffled by the title.

[Hagen]

Got the title now. Bit contrived if you ask me (which, of course, nobody did).

[perseverer]

Not difficult, but fun, and grid construction cannot have been easy, so thanks to Twin.
Agree with Hagen about 2 letter fragments being chopped.
For title, think in relation to first part of instruction.

[brainiac]

They must have taken a lot of care before printing this crossword in today's Times with a title like that!

[NickorWan]

I much prefer that the extra letter comes from a common two-letter abbreviation than an obscure three-letter word. The worst case for me would be a shortened four-letter obscure word which then has the extra letter removed to give two letters of the answer.

I don’t recall having any problems sorting out the extra letters in this puzzle.

[Scorpius]

A nicely constructed grid and some rather nice clues here and there.

After following the first half of the instruction I thought I was looking at something completely different. It was only when I used Google that I saw the real theme.

Re Hagen's original comment, I'm not keen on extra letters coming from two-letter abbreviations or very short words that have been shortened again by wordplay, but I didn't think there were many examples in this puzzle. Certainly not enough for me to consider it an issue.

[sunny-dave]

Pleasant enough - gentle gridfill and then a bit of artwork.

Thanks Twin for a nice puzzle to distract from Storm Jorge.

[Scorpius]

In my first post I meant to ask if anyone solved any of the thematic clues before getting the theme.

[Hagen]

Scorpius, for me it was a case of (a) twigging the theme after guessing at the relevant entries (b) looking up the undisguised versions (I sort of knew one of them but wasn't sure) and then (c) parsing the clue to fit with the known answer. I'm in awe of anyone who managed to do it the other way round!

[IainGrace]

Yes, good fun. Fairly steady progress, having sussed reasonably early on what was going on. Can’t help on the title.

[sunny-dave]

My modus operandi exactly, Hagen.

For the title consider adding certain relevant letters into CRNT ...

[Cruncher]

Nice to give the crayons an outing. Reckoned there were at least two bear-traps with unches. Perhaps an attempt to reduce the all-corrects early on?

[emcee]

Not my bag as far as the theme goes. However a decent rendition which needed a clever construction.

Ironically I sussed the title before knowing how to implement the instructions!

Thanks, Twin.

[pushmi-pullyu]

Finally got there with help from my son for the last stage. Is anyone else grappling with Cain's Jawbone?