Of course, one wouldn’t want every clue to work that way.

Chunter – there’s also a Leoncavallo opera called I Zingari.

I, an average solver, don’t expect the prize puzzle to be hard. It frequently isn’t.

23d I got as far as theta, and couldn’t remember the later letters of the Greek alphabet (it’s been a few years), but the T didn’t help. Omega should have sprung out.

I was fiddling with corsets (it’s been a few years) to no satisfactory outcome, for 16d.

Will: you’ve got it in one. The upsurge in extraneity and spoiling techniques (also available at other unfortunate online locations) has been noted, according to my enquiries.

I know some of the words from several pieces of music in “Gypsy” (aka “Turkish” or generically “exotic”) style. “Tzigane” is the name of a well-known piece for violin (with various accompaniments) by Ravel, and there’s a Noel Coward song called “Zigeuner”.

For the record, I wasn’t too keen on today’s offering but I didn’t mind it too much. I was just doing as asked, cos it was fun to do so.

Who mentioned being angry? I don’t know, you lot may know lottsa useless facts but you don’t know people too well.

Certain people responded once again in a way which suggests they have no understanding of life outside the experts ivory tower. I merely try to be logical and present a broader view and get a facetious answer in reply. Doesn’t say much about that person. Doesn’t say much about any counter argument they may have as they obviously thought it too flakey to present. (I could still be just ess aitch one tea stirring still, but why spoil the fun by saying either way?)

I didn’t get 1ac cos the majority of the words made me think of coal deliveries which in my young day was by horse and cart, which of course has no engine. Social commentary number 5,429, clearly others come from a background which was posher than that.

I think Nathan [Comment 31] has a valid point, in not expecting [but still only grumbling 'slightly'!] to find obscure words and obscure wordplay in the same clue. Apart from 4dn, I don’t think we have that in this puzzle.

1ac is not just a Latin phrase but a legal term, and thus might be known by a wider audience than those of us who were lucky enough to learn Latin at [state] school. In fact, although I could work it out from the second part of the clue, I hadn’t come across it as a phrase and so looked it up – and learned something. The first part of the clue was absolutely straightforward and surely right up Derek’s street?: no engine = no loco; NE ‘Newcastle’ [not to everyone's taste, I know, but common enough to be readily recognised] around ‘tender’, the wagon behind the engine, or ‘coal supplier’ – perfect! If you got to the answer this way, then again you can look up the whole phrase and learn something.

On the other hand, we have commenters like Tom Hutton, who don’t like to have to work back to answers, so they should have been reasonably happy today, I think – being able to learn some new words or phrases perhaps [AIOLI? TSIGANE?] by perfectly ‘legitimate’ means.

Personally, I don’t mind which way I get the answer and, if it’s a new word, so much the better, if it’s a fair clue. Some people get there by having a prodigious vocabulary, others by painstaking parsing, others by a rare flash of intuition – many, I believe, by a combination of all those.

It seems we’re never going to reach agreement – even about what, in fact, does constitute a hard / easy puzzle but, bearing in mind Pete Biddlecombe’s comment re Hugh Stephenson’s intention, can’t we just agree to differ, rather than have the same argument two or three times every week?