Listen With Others

What an interesting puzzle! The message derived from the extra letters was the crucial way in for me, as it gave the quote which, with the help of Google, yielded the theme, A Dance to the Music of Time, cleverly alluded to in the title and nicely illustrated in Shirley’s post. Without Wiki’s description of Anthony Powell’s 12-volume roman fleuve, and the cross-reference to Poussin’s painting, I wouldn’t have stood a chance of completing the gridfill. Some entries, like 1ac, had so many unches that they were all but impossible.

But having identified Powell’s work, I fought my way through to achieve the gridfill, and mapped the numbers to the single-cell words. Afterwards, when I’d recovered with a hearty cup of builders’, I allocated the spare words to the themes, to my satisfaction if no-one else’s.

Two clues stood out for me:

32ac OCREATE Stipulate, as [c]ase for stem, “Pair off, have children”. This made me smile

31dn SWISSING Tell countryman to celebrate with top down – opportunity for rolling of cloth. Lovely definition of Swiss as a “Tell Countryman”!

Thanks Deuce. I can’t see me having time to embark on Powell’s oeuvre, but it’s good to know it’s there if I’m ever feeling brave. And bored.