Geoff: yes, this occured to me after leaving the comment – it was an example of getting to the right answer via the wrong thought process. ‘Island state’ led me to play around with the abbreviations for Hawaii and Rhode Island before settling on New York because of Manhattan, Staten, Ellis etc, as it later occured to me, Island was a separate entity in the clue and gave the I. Just one of those things that sometimes happens.

I’d like to see crossword setters use a few contemporary abbreviations and acronyms occasionally – ROFL, IMHO, RTFM. Surely even the most fuddy-duddy of Guardian readers is familiar with these examples?

Finished The Telegraph before we had left the ground (a long standing personal challenge at which I always seem to succeed, boringly). Finished The Times before the drinks trolley came round. Enjoyed the drinks trolley and its subsequent visits, perhaps a little too much. Slept the rest of the journey. Woke up, 4am, in a dingy East Coast hotel. Turned to The Guardian crossword – and now I am happy. Thoroughly enjoyed this and it was pitched at exactly the right level for a weary traveller!

Through bleary eyes I managed to raise a smile at 11a, 13a and 23a, and almost cheered when I tumbled 22d. Simple but great fun. Thanks Orlando.

I’ve been getting into cryptic crosswords over the last month or so, after years of avoiding them and have been finding most of the Guardian’s offerings (including this one) surprisingly doable. This blog has been a great help for the times when I’ve arrived at an answer and known that it’s correct, but could only see part of the reason why. That having been said, occasionally I’m none the wiser even after a clue has been broken down on here – for example, in this puzzle I managed to arrive at 23 across, but cannot understand where the initial ‘I’ fits in (could anyone enlighten me?).

I also struggle with the abbreviations (e.g. 24 across eluded me here), especially with those whereby it seems one simply needs to know the convention and has no other possible logic for figuring it out. I was doing a puzzle this week in which ‘young girl’ was supposed to lead to ‘di’ – which I simply cannot fathom. ‘Lady’, ‘princess’, ‘police officer’, ‘dual’ or several others might have given me a chance, but why ‘young girl’?

Great blog, thanks to all for the insights.

Smutchin, regarding the length indication of (8) rather than (1,7) or (1’7) for O’CONNELL – you’re logically correct but it is just one of those crossword conventions that apostrophes are ignored in the length indicators. I suppose it’s because it would be too much of a give-away if they were indicated.