Listen With Others

                                                                                  
I found this a tricky and very enjoyable solve.  My thanks go to Ifor!   I was finishing about 10 a.m. Saturday, having started the evening before, so that puts it in the top third of difficulty, I’d reckon.

I thought the ambiguity on the bottom row a very good feature, to fit in with the Lizzie Borden rhyme. You had to know who got 40 whacks and who 41 to enter MOTHER and FATHER in the right places.

As ever with Ifor there were some tough clues: always fair, though (as I have come always to expect from him!).  I thought it a very good theme and the AX removals were all neat.  MAXILLIPEDE threw me for ages:

Bit of lobster that gets in food hamper in places carried by modern girl (9)

… parsed as PED (‘food hamper’) in (thoroughly modern) MILLIE

and: Endorsement passing test, one with only a single line of symmetry (6)

… for MONIAL was one of my last ones parsed.  It seemed so obvious when I eventually thought of (testi)MONIAL – and I do mean eventually! 

Finally I need to remember to think ‘the’, when reading ‘so much’ in a clue.  I bet I won’t, though!

Thanks once again to Ifor for a great & enjoyable puzzle.

Cheers,                                    

Tim / Encota