My great like of crosswords is that I leran lots of new stuff every day. For me that would mean learning some more about pop music, for others it would be learning something about John Cage. It’s neither right nor wrong, just different.

I do perceive a bias towards classical references in cryptics in general, but I think this just reflects the backgrounds of the current generation of setters who are, shall we say, past their first flush of youth. They just write about what they know (good thing too I say, remember Araucaria’s recent attempt at a clue about Bill Gates inventing the concept of Windows?).

In yesterday’s Gordius blog John Cage and especially the word ‘éperdu’, although in Chambers, were not on.
Today’s Araucaria blog is now [22h37] at a point that one discusses Shakespeare.
I am a well-educated man, but I do understand what bamberger means.

I am currently working on a crossword with a pop music theme (not even thát modern), but sometimes I wonder whether that would be appreciated by 15^2 solvers.

Ah well.

I agree with you, PeeDee, about the general standard of FT puzzles.
But ‘names’ like Paul, Araucaria or Rufus cán make the difference, which I do understand. Like you, I guess.

I agree totally that it is important to have a mix of difficulties during the week, otherwise how do people get started? I like to see good crosswords, not just tricky ones. I have been enjoying blogging the FT, of late I think the quality has been higher than the Guardian (my previous ‘gold standard’ for cryptics).

I didn’t want to look down on (who knows) less experienced solvers by saying that this crossword was too easy.
But although I am a rather slow solver myself I really breezed through it with only a few left before I closed my eyes and counted to ten last night. Remember Dusty Springfield?
This only happened once before with a Friday Cincinnus last year.

Maybe, given it a rethink, thát was possibly the forte of the crossword.
Accessible to beginners (I am nót saying you are one, bamberger!) and at the same time full of adventurous and smiling surfaces to satisfy others.
Although I still think that clues like 14 and 16ac are just not that top of the bill, and clues that wouldn’t have been acceptable for Crucible or Radian.

I haste to say that I am a great admirer when it comes to his Guardian and Indy aliases.
This offering was however, unexpectedly, of a different category.
There were a lot of nice touches in the clueing as such.
But just a tad (or two) too easy.