Very much enjoyed this puzzle. Thought I’d share just how misleading 10d’s surface was for me: my first attempt (with no cross-letters to help) was “being smaller”, which at least used all the right letters!

Great debut, Picaroon!

No time yesterday, so only saw this today, and obviously didn’t recognise the setter, so started out nervously hoping for a goodie! Thoroughly enjoyable, with such excellent surfaces. I am glad I didn’t try to squeeze this in yesterday as it has been an excellent start to my first day off in nearly three weeks.

Picaroon, I’d say 43 comments without a moan is surely a record here? Mind you, now we know what you can do the pressure is on for the next one

Now to print off the rest of the puzzles I’ve missed from the last few weeks – recommendations for any as good as this would be welcome.

10d, the Elgin Marbles, is just fabulous.
As is 1d (INGENUE).
And everything’s so precise.

Yes, Picaroon, you got away with this one!

Late back to the party because I had to go out early to star as a random Villager and deliver three highly significant lines in our local pantomime. ['March isn't the time for pantomime'? - Oh yes, it is! ]

Out so early that I missed Picaroon’s visit, which was very welcome – but not very enlightening [apart from the 'first ever daily cryptic', which, I think, confirms some of our suspicions that this was not a tiro's crossword!] Many thanks for dropping in and, again, for the puzzle: like regalize, I look forward to some feather-ruffling!

I have not been at all well today – Noro virus or something similar so read this through binoculars .

I found it rather hard to get into in the circumstances but it was clearly a good puzzle once I got started. I particularly liked 26a and 1d.

I had to hunt out infotainment and got but missed the parsing of Ethan – googling revealed an EThan Macbeth and several EThans who had played the part. Thanks for the explanation – I like to think I would have seen it for myself in a less fraught state.