Listen With Others

What an attractive outcome this puzzle provided!

After completing Map’s gridfill in double quick time, I thought I was going to fall completely at the last fence. Then I googled “Isthmus in the UK” and what should pop out of the Wiki list but MAVIS GRIND! To my relief my 3 regions fitted the map exactly and it was a wrap.

Some omissions were quite hard to spot, and it took a while before I twigged that some cells contained more than one letter, but FORECAST was so strong that I entered the 3 letters, and realised why I’d be having problems with 4dn, 14dn and 17dn. Even then, I started chasing down the ASTON Expressway before the light dawned. Notwithstanding, the gridfill element was a Friday nighter.

My favourite clue was 9ac AMMO “Bullets perhaps appearing inside inverted commas” for the ingenious use of inverted commas. Closely followed by the spoonerism in 2dn’s FORECAST. And how clever to find anagrams of ATLANTIC and NORTH SEA.

A most enjoyable and educational puzzle thanks Pointer, giving me a welcome reminder of the time we called in to the Shetland Islands en route for Iceland – I’d love to revisit them, and the Orkneys and the Faroes, which were swathed in mist on the day we were there.