Out of the blue, Mike Laws put the real identities of all his compilers next to the crossword on the Indy page just a couple of weeks before he sadly left us. I don’t think it upset anybody, and we, as a new team, were quite glad of the publicity. That’s where you found that information.

Yes, I am a fellow blogger and have been for a couple of years now, regularly for Listen With Others. I set as Curmudgeon too and have been doing so for a few years. I know just what you mean about the clues getting different reactions from different solvers. No offence taken, honestly – even if I did creep into my doghouse with my tail between my legs.

And you had every reason to tangle with that clue.

I had noted that Rasputin was the triumvirate of SC, RF & AG-S (tho’ how I found out is now a mystery to me) and that you were SC, but I didn’t put the two bits together.

Maybe “doddle” seems a bit too dismissive. I have great respect for setters and appreciate that what is a difficult clue to solve for some may seem easy to others and vice versa.

I originally had SYND as the answer to “Good lick” but couldn’t find any wordplay (thought about SYNDicate betting at Ayr racecourse), and, given that it means a slight wash, it didn’t fit well with good lick. So I asked around, and SYNE for “in a bit” was the consensus …

Thank you, Holy Ghost and all the bloggers. I am somewhat downcast that this was ‘rather a doddle’ – I’ll have to stiffen things up! I’m not quite ‘a setter new to the Inquisitor’ as Mike Laws published our Rasputin ‘Forevermoor’ not long ago (that team is three of us, Artix, Ilver and Chalicea). It, too had a minor problem and I realize now that the muddled preamble came from the fact that poor Mike had to reduce the length of our original over-wordy one – and made a bit of a mess of it – we were not sent a proof for final checking. This one (Switzerland’s Finest) had been sitting in his files for a while and was compiled well over a couple of years ago.

Our new editor is taking the blame for the guddle at 42ac (sorry Scarpia, about the Scots words – I did upset 1 Across but we do appear on almost every page of Chambers). However, he is being too kind-hearted. Other editors are categorical about it: “… a proof will be sent to the setter. It is his absolute responsibility to check for errors in the grid or text.” So mea culpa; I just hope it didn’t spoil anyone’s enjoyment.

My tiny excuse is that I was swanning in Spain with drastically limited resources (no Scottish Chambers, no Word) and we were rushing to get this into print. I’ve never encountered such editorial commitment, as John reduced about 600 words to the required 450 or so, including clue numbers and lengths.

Kettledrum, I believe you should be claiming that bottle of champagne as, of course, LUCK/LICK would have worked perfectly as that misprint – SYNE’s second meaning (see SYND) is ‘a rinsing’ and LICK is a ‘slight smearing or wash’ thus perhaps we over egged the pudding and put a double misprint in there

I probably spent as much time on that clue as on the whole of the rest of the puzzle (including blogging), so for me it did detract somewhat – but this cannot be representative, so don’t take it as such.

Chalicea and I did a lot of work on the original submission, mainly to cut clue lengths to fit the Indy Magazine slot (something for would-be new setters to bear in mind). In the process, I altered the clue to 42 several times before arriving at the published version. The misprint is indeed the E in ‘bet’ giving ‘in a bit’ as the definition.

I have searched through the 1184 folder (16 files) for a reason for the rest of the clue. There must have been a reason, but I cannot for the life of me find it. So it does indeed look like an error on my part, for which apologies. However, I’m thinking of offering a separate bottle of champagne for anyone who can help me identify what was going through my head at the time! The newly-discovered stress of editorship is surely not the reason…

TREASONS, the plural at 36, is no mistake (see ODE, OED and The Merchant of Venice!) and ‘showing L/hands to enemies’ is the definition, containing two pluralised forms.

Thanks to all bloggers – very helpful! – and to Chalicea for all the hard work. I hope 42ac did not detract from enjoyment.

I have done puzzles by Chalicea before,in Araucaria’s One Across magazine.She specialises in themed circular puzzles and has been known to use words/definitions only found in Chamber’s Scottish Dictionary.
Enjoyable puzzle.

On 42a, I too would go for SYNE and ‘in a bit’ as the misprint, but on the grounds that the first definition in Chambers for SYNE is ‘then, next; afterwards, later; ago, since’ (as in auld lang syne’). My guess is that Chalicea is suggesting that ‘auld lang syne’ equates to ‘good luck’, but I am not convinced. I suppose there is also some link to Robert Burns, author of the poem Auld Lang Syne, as he came from a village very close to Ayr