Poor old Anax keeps on getting me at the moment. This wasn’t nearly so hard as his offering last week; the theme, which became clear when the long clue at 16ac was solved, was more to my liking (many of the down answers are thematic) but there are still two words that I can’t find in Chambers or the lists of the thematic things in Chambers Crossword Dictionary. Anax has kindly used thematic words that usually have other meanings, so it is possible to do this crossword without knowledge of the theme.

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This was quite a smooth solve, except for 7A which held me up for a bit.  In fact the “spare” time from the faster completion, was spent in embellishing (maybe too much, in restrospect) the blog.  But no complaints on my side, and thanks to Armonie – nice surface readings in the clues.

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Two weeks ago, I apologised for using Dr Livingstone, I presume? in the headline. I further added Green Eggs and Ham,the title of Dr Zeuss’s classic as an example of something totally unrelated. However, as luck would have it, Pasquale’s theme that day was meals and suddenly my title (pre-written before I even downloaded the puzzle) became another source of contention. If that be the case, I apologise again for unwittingly “spoiling”. I shall henceforth listen to the advice of Gaufrid and not include any title to my blog.

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