Listen With Others

Earworm apart, I liked the theme – the Wombles were ahead of their time, reusing (or as the jargon has it, repurposing) the discards of us humans. Good for them. Clever title too!

This was no walk in the park, or rather on the common. The clues were tricky enough, even without the extra letters and the strings to be removed.28dn “Reduce Dr Finlay’s 1cc” in particular was a right so-and-so, for which I resorted to Quinapalus, and eventually worked out why the only candidate – COPY IN – parsed perfectly.

32dn made me smile – “mobile office” is a great definition of a portaloo. And thank goodness I spotted TOBERMORY early on.

I almost fell in the trap of erasing the final R from SCAVENGER before I spotted the brilliant REFUSE / REUSE construct. Spotting WOMBLE was easier.

Thanks go to Brock for this thematically rich puzzle – well done for tying up each Womble with his/her item of litter.