Listen With Others

I like puzzles where a simple shape has to be highlighted; for example many years ago a Listener crossword displayed the copyright symbol. In early August 2015 it occurred to me that a question mark would make a nice image in a 13×13 grid, which led to “To be or not to be …”. If the seventh word is omitted (apologies to all purists), the beginning of the quote would fit inside the question mark. The grid would need about 45 clues and fortunately, as the “location” was 22 letters long, a concealed message could fit neatly into the across clues. I had recently started using Qxw for constructing grids, and with relatively little thematic material it was easy to produce an acceptable grid. A day to write the clues, think of a title and, hey presto, all done! I was surprised that this theme had not been used before.

Aedites

[The © puzzle was Listener No 3674, Duck’s 1886 and All That back in 2002. Ed.]