I hesitated to add any more detail for the very reasons you’ve expressed. Thanks for looking it up. I’d hoped someone actually living in Britain might have an answer, but it seems you’re spot on and this is just coincidence.

Sil, I understand you. Shakespeare may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but we narive English speakers were all brought up on him, to the point that, at least here in Spain, English is referred to as “the language of Shakespeare”, just as Spanish is “the language of Cervantes” – but few Spaniards have ever actually read Don Quixote; here, we English have an advantage: it’s easier/shorter to read a play than a novel.

I thought about replying to your post more than 4 hours ago, but wasn’t sure if we would both thereby risk being struck by lightning – at first sight, it looks so evident to make a connection between these 2 incredible puzzles today. Do we, though, thereby risk spoiling the solve for someone who wanted to do Brendan’s puzzle (and to check the result) before tackling Scorpion in the Indy, and thus contravening the Site Rules? I’m assuming in what follows that Gaufrid doesn’t see this as an issue (but if it is Gaufrid, please just ) delete this posting.

So, two Shakespearean themed puzzles today (both brilliant in my view, and if Giovanni thinks that Brendan’s really is the “Crossword of the Year” I won’t necessarily disagree but would say nevertheless, please do have a look at what Scorpion gave us, breathtaking as it was in every way).

My first thought was that today’s date must be the connection, but “the Eve of the Glorious Twelfth” clearly has nothing to do with “Twelfth Night” (or Epiphany as most sources would have it) and the 11 August looks equally unpromising per se (Google suggests that this was both the date when Shakespeare’s only son was buried, having (probably) died of the Plague, and also the date on which he purchased shares in some quite lucrative theatrical company or other – in either case, it doesn’t look like a fruitful line of enquiry.

Thus, my conclusion is that this is simply yet another of the happy coincidences which seem, curiously, to occur from time to time in our “cryptic world” – it’s really quite remarkable how often the same(ish) clues seem to reappear, albeit in different guises.

Marvellous crossword.
For once ( ) I have really nothing to add.

That said, I must admit that the thematic context (ie Shakespeare), which probably plays a very important for many of the posters above, leaves me rather cold (it is not part of my educational background). Any theme would have done for me.
It is the exceptionally fine cluing and the clever grid construction that makes this crossword – just like I said in the Radian blog two days ago – a true piece of art.
Chapeau!

It’s so-called because some artist or other (marvel at my unbounded knowledge!) used to hide the name of his daughter (Nina) in his artwork.