For me this was a classic “mostly gettable if you work at it” puzzle. Got a couple-three short words last night, then sat down and got serious this morning. One of the pleasures was in the general area of being half-done, and each new answer helping me finally solve what was a stumper to me. Many of those stumpers were also “ahas” since once solved they were “obvious”!

That kind of thing is fun.

Never would have got OXFORD BAGS in a million years, even after typing “BANF” into wikipedia and getting the checked F. But that’s not a fault at all with the puzzle, simply a cultural thing.

I expected TURN-OFF to be more complex, like a play a cricket side performs. Should have opened my Chambers to ink in CUT, I bought that lovely book for a reason.

Totally missed EXAMS, was half-happy with a penciled in “Evans”, which of course doesn’t work anyway.

Thought it was odd for a US Spaceship to use British spelling.

1D was first in and gave great pleasure.

Thanks for the wonderful series of mind-twisting pleasures – and for dropping by, it is so nice for the setters to do so, Orlando, and for the excellent as ever blog Eileen. And everyone else.

This took some getting in to as I spent the afternoon enjoying a thought-provoking version of Richard III at The Globe – so many layers of meaning were crashing round in my head.

My first thought on 6d was mobile home! Spotting anagrams is not my forte but once solved, it made perfect sense!

Giovanna x

Re 6 down – Family-style base?
I’m glad that many solvers seem to have liked this clue. I thought of it as an anagram & lit, with ‘base’ as the anagrind, and the whole clue being a whimsical definition punning on ‘mafia-style’ = ‘family’ and ‘base’ = ‘seat’. What pleased me most about it is that there is so much going on in so few words. Multum in parvo, as Eileen would say.

Re 26 down ‘Friends of Nancy the novelist’
I must confess that I wasn’t thinking of the novelist Nancy Amis, but I’m glad that some solvers have found in the clue more than I consciously intended! What I did have in mind – as “added value” for the clue – was Nancy Mitford who lived in France and would have had many French friends. As well as being the author of “Love in a Cold Climate” and other novels, she popularised the terms U and non-U, which have since proved so useful for crossword setters.

It’s a Double Definition of cut.

“saw” is fairly obvious

and “pretend not to see” as in to cut someone dead i.e. not recognise on purpose!

CUT = ‘pretend not to see’, as in ‘s/he cut me dead’, or, in Chambers’ rather po-faced definition: ‘to pass intentionally without greeting’.

On 18a: I had C-T and eventually thought of ‘saw’ as a verb meaning CUT. What part does ‘pretend’ play here?