While the pdf is a good option, I don’t like them because I often do these out of order and the pdf contains the solution to the day before’s puzzle, as Davy points out. (When an Aurabetical or something similar turns up I take my reading glasses off and with the puzzle upside down take a sharpie to the solution until it’s a blurry black blob!)

25503 and 25504′s bizarre printing glitch was strange indeed – I looked at the html source and even though all I saw on my screen was the normal print version, the html contained all the comment etc. that used 13 sheets of paper (only on one side, though). Anyway, from my first glance, 25505 appears to be working properly.

On to the puzzle! Agreeing with everyone else, this was a real delight, with many wonderful clues. Apart from verifying 12a, I was even able to finish it unaided. I especially liked the “compressed” &lit/anagrams at 10a and 3d. The exhortation that a clue contain “…and nothing more” says nothing about “…and nothing less”!

Thanks for the blog, UY, and extra thanks for the fun, Philistine!

Yes, the Print Version was annoyingly not working today so I did use the PDF version but I do prefer the Print Version as it has a bigger grid and doesn’t have yesterday’s answers.

How you managed to complete that strange grid I’ll never know but well done anyway.

What a marvellous puzzle from Philistine which I didn’t find as easy as some but I do seem to be getting dimmer by the day. My ability shines out like a one watt bulb. I was delayed by many false anagrams and some quite devious wordplay but got there in the end. The only clue I failed to parse correctly was HUMANS which I saw as HUM(murmur) + AN(a) + S(short). I wondered where ‘reply’ came in and amazingly failed to see ‘ans’. My COD is definitely 27a which is a brilliant construction. Thanks Philistine.

PS Nice story tupu.

We don’t have a favourite clue, they were all so good.

Many thanks UY and Philistine.

You are of course quite right. In Finland, Donald Duck’s three nephews (our Huey, Louie, and Dewey) are Hupu, Lupu and Tupu.

On 5d I thought of Bing then decided that ‘dreamer’ in the clue meant the writer of the song. I could not remember and Gershwin refused to go into a 6-letter space! Eventually I worked it out.