This was an excellent puzzle, and I enjoyed doing it. But in two respects it was a fridaythethirteenthogram as well as a pangram.

The problem with 11a has been amply covered. But I believe there was also a mix-up with 9 and 24. ’24 9 features back to front (6)’ is an excellent clue for 24 if 9 has been separately clued. 9 should have been separately clued, and there are two signs that this was the setter’s intention. Firstly, the normal practice with genuine double light clues is to print both clue numbers in bold, whereas here only the first one was. Secondly, for a joint clue as interpreted in the blog, the reversal of order (putting
9 after 24) was unmotivated as far as I can see.

Used dictionaries – and Crossword Solver on the internet.

First in were IRONFIST and CATHETER which I liked best along with KINGJAMESBIBLE.

Is the setter taking the stick for an overzealous spellchecker (‘sheik’ is OK in 11a)?

Needed the blog to explain SAVAGED and EUGENICS (on track with the latter but needed the significance of ‘essentially’ and ‘implication’ explained).

Have met a ZO (not literally!) before but had forgotten him/her.

Missed the pangram aspect – excellent.

After the hour or two of staring finally broken by getting EMACIATION, things slowly progressed one hard-earned answer at a time, and ending with my giving up once I had ruined my chances of getting KHALIF by penciling in Mareham.

Oddly, I didn’t notice the extra H until _after_ solving the anagram with a few crossers and obvious placements like the I in IS, and THE. When I listed the letters left to go in, I just missed the other H and that made it easy. I was perfectly willing to blame the Grauniad’s typesetters (and yes, I checked the pdf and on-line versions), as I bet most were, so it was very honourable of Crucible to turn up and take the blame. And I love it when the setters join in here.

Although it took me ages to get what should have been an easy clue, 15d really made me smile, excellent clue indeed, as was the already-mentioned 23a.

I had INSTANT “early on”, and so was looking for some kind of Bible. Rather embarrassed that I was researching what might have been obscure versions when I noticed that the best known one ever had the right number of letters – and fit the now obvious anagram fodder. Brilliant.

Thanks for a wonderful treat, Crucible, and for the great blog, Andrew.

“Good puzzle though even for a confirmed atheist.”

Who confirmed you? An anti-bishop?

I thought EL might be East Lancs (railway).

Stan (also atheist)

I spotted the potential for a pangram early on, having filled in the “z” in 14 and the “x” in 26, and it actually helped me with 20, since I knew I still had to accommodate a “q” somewhere. Indeed, without that help, I don’t think that I would even have solved 20, not knowing all the MND Mechanicals off by heart – thanks, btw, Eileen.

Well done for scouring the grid for Biblical references, which one must assume were largely intentional since Crucible has not claimed otherwise – I am not sure that my own blogging patience would have stretched that far. While most of them were wasted on me, that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the puzzle, although recognising “strait and narrow” as such a reference might have made me more tolerant of the lack of wordplay in 9.

The occasional typo (the extra “h” at 11 – an over-zealous spellcheck?) reminds us that compilers and editors are human too, since we bloggers are not immune to the occasional slip of the “pen”.

Like liz, I too couldn’t get away from Lincoln as a place name, either in Lincolnshire or Nebraska.

25A EL for railway. Assume this is an accepted abbreviation but it’s passed me by til now.

18A What a mess! So we have No as an abbreviation for number in the clue…which we then have to further abbreviate to N?! And I never like IO for 10. Got it but hate it.

14A cross for cross breed and then a type of cross breed you need refernce books for. Stumps the commuter.

11A Isn’t there a crossword editor to check these things? Thanks for the apology though Crucible.