Took me about 20 minutes, except for the last two clues, which I feel could take another week. Offers welcomed for 13 across and 22 down. What with these, and several dictionary words I guessed, I’d call it medium hard in the new classification system. And Ximenean in parts – but then, I didn’t know I was a Ximenean until I read my profile! Maybe we need some new terms to describe our attitude to ideological conflicts such as whether different wordplay functions can be combined in one word, and whether Labour leader can equal L. Indeedies? Gatesheadites?

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I found this very easy – one of my rare sub-10 minute solves I think – but that’s not really the point as there’s a very clever piece of grid wizardry going on here. The unchecked letters in the 1st, 5th, 11th and 15th rows contain all the letters of the alphabet in order. I know nothing at all about filling grids but that looks to me like quite an achievement. I haven’t commented much because many of the clues were quite straightforward but I thought this was another terrific puzzle from a terrific setter. Read the rest of this entry »