This left me with a smile on my face when I finished. I remember Ares’ last puzzle (4633) involved a trivial grid fill followed by an interminable grid stare, and I feared the same with this one after solving the clues quite quickly. It took a while to find the version of what the instruction suggests that agreed with the preamble, but once I had it there was no ambiguity.
For me, the primary requirement of a Listener is that it’s fun, and this certainly was. Thanks Ares.
I agree Hawk, the quote leads to an obvious (and I think unambiguous) solution, but that does jar with a small part of the preamble. I'm inclined to go with the quote.