Thanks for stopping by, Boatman, but I can’t thank you for this mess. Random names as definitions are the worst form of clues in this land.

Thanks for the blog, Manehi. I can’t even care to figure out those SE answers I missed, this puzzle was so unamusing.

Finbarr, Rhumba, Erroll and Casandra in one puzzle goes against Boatman’s stated “once in a while”.

But mostly it was just too hard for me and that always makes me a little less tolerant of other weaknesses.

As tupu has already said Google confirms that Casandra is not a misspelling but an alternative spelling, just as Finbarr is an alternative to the more usual Finbar. Wiki even suggests, rather unconvincingly, that Casandra and Cassandra have different meanings.

I once worked for a short time with a group of Americans, one of whom was called Laymond Pon. When we Brits asked him about his name he explained that his parents migrated from China to California before he was born. They encountered the name Raymond and liked it, especially in the only way they were able to pronounce it. Laymond grew up quite happy with the originality of his name, even though he was able to pronounce Raymond correctly.

Coming back to it after a while, I think a lot of my reservations while solving were down to a fear after the first few solutions that every “girl”/”boy” would be a definition. As it is, I liked the different uses not only of girl/boy but also “place to drink”, “legend” & “overweight”. 4dn, however, still looks wrong.

As for 17d – I saw the parsing for this fairly quickly, and quite like it. It was leg-end that stumped me for a good ten minutes.

Everyone who is still struggling with the parsing of 17D – it’s very simple: “ran out of things to say” = synonym for “dried up” = DRIED rev = DEIRD etc, exactly as blogged by manehi. You can see it as a cheeky semi-indirect reversal indicator, if you like – a bit like an indirect anagram, but more acceptable because “dried up” is such a common phrase and so appealing as an indicator. Well, it appealed to me, anyway.

Thanks to all …

Mixed feelings, though.

Of course, all the ingredients typical to a Boatman crossword are there. That said, all?
I think this is the first Guardian puzzle in which Boatman didn’t mention his own ‘name’ in one of the clues.

As Rorschach said, ALASTAIR (11ac) was a belter – agree.
And yes, INGE(12ac) was very very clever. Another highlight.

Although I am perhaps more Libertarian than Ximenean, I am still not a big fan of the devices used in 9d (leg/end), 15d (de/faulted) and 16d (over/weight). I know Boatman likes them (and uses them ever so often), so I was alert. That said, three in one puzzle, ah well.

At first, 19ac’s “occasions” did raise my eyebrows but on second thoughts I think it’s more than OK. The verb “to occasion” can mean “to cause” or “to produce” (something). Quite a good anagram, btw.

On the other hand, there were a few things that were food for thought here in Cambridge.
The wording of 8ac (“Girl with boy on board ship”) made our brain cells work because of the use of “on board”, but it’s fine – more than, in fact.
But the “out of” in 20d still feels rather uncomfortable.
And what’s the purpose of the ellipsis 17/18d? Is it the unfinished sentence in 17d that needed a follow-up?
While I know that it’s defendable, I/we still don’t like clues like 2d in which the order of things goes against one’s (ie my/our) intuition. “Girl going round cheese festival” – it’s not the girl that goes round ‘brie’, but the festival.

While some rave about 17d, I am not sure whether the device used here (well, yvains, is it really a (let alone, much used) device?) is one step too far or not. I personally think, if we accept “ran out of things to say”= “dried up” = a reversal of DEIRD, we should accept indirect anagrams from now on too.

So, what’s our verdict today?
Well, while solving we were a bit annoyed by all these unusual spellings and by the fact (not Boatman’s fault) that we got stuck in the SE. I’m afraid that, in the end, we found it a bit of a slog.
But but (yes, twice, not a typo), I/we appreciated – as ever – the effort that Boatman made to produce a crossword that carried undeniably his signature.

Many thanks, manehi!