One of the few occasional puzzles I manage to completely solve without aids or looking up odd words or places; I was about 6 or 7 clues in thinking “those were easy, now what awaits?”, but one by one they gently fell, with some lovely “ahas”, ie at 4, 20, 23, 17, etc.

To chime in on the controversy of the day…

Imagine letters circulating about the end of the pencil! (8)

If we take L as an abbreviation for “letters” (can we?), it all falls into place: (Imagine L)* = “the end of the pencil”. Simple enough. Though I was happy with the loose &lit while solving, using the last L for the anagram rather than the first.

Lovely puzzle, Boatman, and thanks so much for dropping by; and thanks for the carefully presented blog, PeterO, and to everyone else for the lively and interesting commentary!

On his website Boatman quotes something that I said long ago about his puzzles – that he is the B in my crossword ABC and that ‘this’ (ie his puzzles) is a reason why people like crosswords.
To be honest, I found Boatman’s recent puzzles always enjoyable but also somewhat over-clever. And that B could easily be Brendan’s too.
But this was a charmer of a puzzle.

Boatman is very keen on themed puzzles, but this ‘theme’ didn’t feel like a ‘theme’ for us. It was more like a ‘wintry flavour’, a bonus that made this crossword a real entity.

I have read this L&S discussion, but I always thought that L&S meant “splitting up things (esp. phrases or separate words) in a clue that are closely linked through the surface” [which seems to be underlined by Boatman in his post @27]. Cutting up words [like in de/liberated or snow/man] is for me something different. A couple of years ago, I did not really like it, but nowadays it is so common that it has become a ‘new’ device. If one wants to make it part of L&S, fine by me, I can’t be bothered.
In fact, when I saw 17ac (“Constancy of saint, unaltered”), I immediately thought of “saint,un/altered”, knowing that Boatman loves this trick. Of course, here it doesn’t work.
Therefore, no problem with de/liberated. However, I agree with Hobnob @15 in what (s)he says about snow/man. It is not common to have one of these parts (here: man) being used as the definition. In the recent Philistine blog, I said a similar thing.
That said, if we’re splitting up anyway, why not include the definition?

I can imagine that some people will also have a slight problem with the “apostrophe s” in 5d. When I did this myself a few years ago in the Cryptica competition with “Winter sport’s flight announcement (12)”, Paul wasn’t fully happy with it.
Times have changed, that’s for sure [but perhaps more in the world of The Guardian than eg in that of The Times].
And, let’s face it, Boatman ignores any kind of punctuation, a good example of that being 6d (HEATER).

This was a very satisfying crossword.
Very accessible – and once you’re in, eminently solvable.
Perhaps, some don’t like “first frost” for F (as opposed to “first of frost” (which, of course, doesn’t make sense within the surface)0.
Or ask themselves why a STREAKER is defined by “she runs” (female?).
Or have doubts about EMAILING – at first, I raised my eyebrows, then started appreciating the imagination of the clue. I am not interested in whether it is called an &Lit or not, as long as the clue works it’s ok for me [and it did].
And, finally, the funny thing in the ESCORT clue is that “Company” could have been the definition too. I know, it’s not, but it made me feel that there might have been &Lit chances.

Verdict of my PinC?
Thumbs up for Boatman!

The Chamber’s and Macmillan definitions do not really mention hilltop as such, and the crest part suggests the usual understanding of ridge.

I won’t open up a discussion on Munros, tops and Marylins etc!

The story about the Russians simply using a pencil has considerable staying power but, if you imaging a broken-off tip of (electrically conductive) graphite floating round mission-critical electronics in zero gravity, it is clear that no-one would permit a pencil on a spacecraft.

This is my first post on 15², although I’ve been lurking for some time. It would be inexcusable to sign off without offering huge thanks to all: setters, bloggers and commentators alike.

Among the definitions of ridge:

A long narrow top or crest (Chambers)

The long narrow top of a mountain or group of mountains (Macmillan)

A long, narrow hilltop, mountain range, or watershed (Oxford)

Thought EMAILING was excellent in retrospect, but slightly unsatisfactory at the time of solving as with all the half-definitions wasn’t quite convinced it was the right answer, though it sort of had to be.

I preferred as clue of the day:

OBEDIENT – As a good dog with bone, it deliberated

because it reads very nicely and both the synonym and the word play make it obvious once you’ve got it.

Robi @ 39, I haven’t counted them up, but my vote goes with PaulB @ 31, for once (on 16d) – didn’t like it at all.

No one else seems to have objected to 12a; a RIDGE is not a hilltop in my experience (though it would lead to one).