Guardian Saturday Prize Crossword 29,769 by Brendan (9 August 2025)

71 comments on “Guardian Saturday Prize Crossword 29,769 by Brendan (9 August 2025)”

1. Thanks mc_rapper67. My experience was much like yours, I was inexcusably slow to recognise the repetition of across clues, entering ERNE I mused that it could equally well have been TERN but still the penny did not drop. Trying to reconcile Oklahoma coming after Washington I was fixated on shows and found there was a mini series entitled Washington but the timing was wrong. I came to the same conclusion of dates of admission and am sure you are right. I like your explanation of 13a, that never did occur to me and I doubt there will be much better suggestions. I had ‘doctor’ for 25a, accounts and blood vessels, so not altogether wrong but POTTER is much better.

2. I hadn’t yet seen the duplicated across clues when I hit the ERNE/TERN dilemma in 11a, and I thought, that’s quite unlike Brendan. Then I saw the rest of the acrosses and thought, that’s just like Brendan!

   Crafting cryptic clues that precisely give two different answers is not at all easy, so great admiration to Brendan for doing it, especially with grid constraints. Those that go in completely different directions, like OKLAHOMA/HAMILTON, are just terrific. It seems the ambiguity at 6a was a minor casualty of the challenge, but it didn’t spoil the enjoyment. (The crossers don’t differentiate between TESTER and SETTER, and I think we’re supposed to choose the former here just because the latter has taken up residence in 24a)

   I think mc_r67 is quite correct about 13a, no need for better suggestions.

3. I was dismayed by the initial study of the puzzle. Luckily, 13a came to me almost immediately and all fell into place at a regular pace after that. I was sure of HAMILTON for 22a, with the additional reason that he was a `follower’ of Washington in the War too. But OKLAHAMA for 10a, I filled with a lingering doubt, due to unsatisfactory parsing. My only (very minor quibble) is 9a and 23a are not truly symmetrical. A small compromise that the setter had to make in an innovative (and excellent) puzzle.

4. tyipcal brilliance from Brendan. Confirms that he is a member of Oulipo. ,,, ,

5. sorry … typical

6. I’m a ‘methodical solver’ so I entered answers at 6 and 11, decided I couldn’t solve 13/8 but then I started reading the rest of the across clues and realised I did know the answer to 13/8 but I would have to delete the other answers I had entered, so I was glad I was solving on a computer.

   I thought ‘Input for 13, 8 appropriately placed’ was the definition for 9a and 23a, because in double-entry bookkeeping debits are placed in the left column and credits in the right column.

   As for a puzzle like this one, I can’t go past Two Grids with One Stone by Twin from Magpie 235 where there was one set of clues from which two identical grids had to be filled differently, on which I commented “It seemed obvious what needed to be done, except for the fact it was obviously impossible.”

   Thanks, Brendan and mc_rapper67.

7. At first I thought the repetition was a mistake, but then got DOUBLE ENTRY and BOOKKEEPING, and spotted a second one. By Sunday I’d pretty much completed the puzzle, but the NW held me up. It had to be DEBITS, but I was slow to see why. Annoyingly, like BIGGLES @1 I made a mistake with 25A, though I had BOATER instead of POTTER. I can’t quite recall my reasoning (though it included a reversal of ROB for fiddle, which I don’t really think works). Anyway, thanks to Brendan for the cold towel workout, and to mc_rapper67 for the impressive and colourful blog.

8. A tour de force from Brendan and a sign of how far I’ve come as solver that I was able (eventually!) to finish, fully parsed, this one. I say “fully parsed” although I have the same interpretation, and the same doubts about it, as mc_rapper67 for the “repeated thrice” part in 13/8. It will be interesting follow the comments to see if anyone can come up with a better parsing.
   Thanks to Brendan and mc_rapper67.

9. Very clever. I just wish we had been warned. I confidently entered the right answer in the wrong place twice before realizing there were identical clues.

   I found several of the clues easier to answer than parse, and was expecting the whole thing to fall apart at any moment. Anyway, I got there.

   Thanks Brendan and mc_r…

10. I am a “flitter” and ofter start with any long clue(s) to give me a useful hold. So DOUBLE-ENTRY BOOKKEEPING was my first solve (guess) confirmed by ANTIHERO.

    Then from the crosses decided that 10 ac and 18 ac had to be the shows/musicals OKLAHOMA and HAMILTON but couldn’t see how they parsed until a bit of googling identified HAMILTON as a colleague/follower of Washington and that OKLAHOMA joined the union after Washington.

    Then got POTTER and TINKER which were favourites and I was off though it took me an annoyingly long time to spot TERN/ERNE.

    Got stuck in the NW at the end and finally stuck in DEBITS without seeing how it parsed.

    Never seen a puzzle like this but really enjoyed it.

    Thanks Brendan and mc-rapper67

11. Brendan did do this before, Guardian Prize 28,769 in 2022 and I think I’ve solved something like this years ago by Araucaria but double prize puzzles.

    I solve systematically, so had only got as far as entering TERN/ERNE the wrong way round because I spotted TESTER/SETTER were both solutions and started looking at down clues to work out which went were.

    I loved this, thanks to Brendan and mc_rapper.

12. Here’s a link to my blog of the previous puzzle: https://www.fifteensquared.net/2022/06/04/guardian-prize-28769-by-brendan/

    I had completely forgotten that Brendan had done this before, although, like Matthew @6 I did think of the Twin puzzle.

13. My TERN had to migrate south 😀

    The central clue was so imposing in the grid that I felt I was tinkering around the edges until the thought of DOUBLE popped into my head and everything fell into place. I couldn’t do any better with thrice. We had a book of Oddities when I was young and BOOKKEEPER was listed as the only word with three consecutive double letters. Almost!

    I thought this was brilliant. Keeping the clues just “loose” enough to allow two satisfactory answers is high precision engineering. I liked LANDSCAPES and LIKENESSES.

    Bravo Brendan and thanks mc_rapper67

14. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

    Thanks one and all.

15. [Who set today’s Prize? I can’t see any way to find out in the app now the link’s gone from the More section. Was it Paul?]

16. I also recalled the Twin puzzle with the two grids as well as Boatman’s EU Referendum puzzle which yielded two different results, leave or remain, depending the solver’s chosen solutions to certain clues. I believe it was issued as a ‘special’ the day before the Brexit result was announced.

    For Oklahoma Washington I assumed the ‘historical’ reference related to the order in which they became States.

    Good fun.
    Thanks to Brendan and mc-rapper67

17. [Martin@15, yes it’s Paul today. Here’s the pdf]

18. I’m another who took a wrong TERN. Luckily I started online before putting pen to paper. I think I’d have been less amused if I’d been using Biro from the start

    I’m not a huge fan of this kind of “cleverness” but it didn’t excessively detract from the solving experience

    Cheers MC&B

19. I’m systematic. On the first pass I confidently wrote TERN into what would later turn out to be the wrong place, then saw DOUBLE BOOKKEEPING straight away from the enumeration and the three sets of double letters, which were enough for me. It was still a surprise to see the same set of across clues, but it all made a sort of sense. HAMILTON was an easy guess for a show, and fitted the N of BOOKKEEPING.

    At that point, things went awry. 10a now looked like an American show beginning with O, and my first thought was OKLAHOMA. Well, actually, it wasn’t quite, and I’m not sure I want to admit this, because what I tried to fit in was OAKLAHOMA and it wouldn’t go. All these years on earth, including some spent living in the US, and I think there are three ‘A’s in OKLAHOMA! And for most of the solve, that mistake kept the upper right corner blank. (Except for TESTER -who’d have thought ‘street’ had such a pair of anagrams?) Finally, I got BEDLINEN and revisited the missing US show. And I checked my spelling, and all was clear. I even thought of the order of statehood, and checked that. To make it worse, I’ve seen the show (well, not the stage show, but the movie.) So an embarrassing solve, but what a tremendously enjoyable puzzle! All those cleverly ambiguous clues. I’d not seen that trick before. Thanks Brendan for the ingenuity and mc for the blog – and the animated solution!

    (The clues have ‘More that one…’ at the start of 12a and ‘More than one’ for its 18a twin. I wondered if this was significant, but assumed it was a Grauniadism.)

20. Thanks Jay. That was my assumption on the states too.

21. [Martin@15 – if you look in the Archive section in Puzzles in the app it lists all the crosswords with their setters, and it is indeed Paul]

22. [Yes, today’s is Paul]
    That was such an impressive puzzle, I loved it.
    I like solving on paper, but fortunately I use pencil so no problem when I twigged what was going on.

23. Thank you, mc_rapper. I agree with your analysis, and those of most others. Matthew@6 is surely right about ‘appropriately placed’, with credit on the right and debit to the left. I suppose if one had entered 9 and 23 first on that basis, the others crossing would have fallen into place, but I don’t imagine anyone was that lucky.

    I was happy about OOKKEE being the double entry repeated thrice, though a bit unsure about ‘redundancy’. But I think the analysis is right.

    HAMILTON was a follower of Washington not just in that they worked together. Washington selected him as an assistant both in the Revolutionary army and then in government. ‘Historically’ surely refers to American history, while it puns for OKLAHOMA by referring to the historical order of the admission events. No need to worry about the town of Washington OK.

    Congratulations to Brendan for the devious puzzle.

24. I loved this! Although initially I thought it was a printing error and was reluctant to even try to solve it. SETTER was my confident FOI until I met the same clue again. After some thought I saw TESTER was an option. So I began to see that I would need the crossers to ascertain where to put each word. ERNE and TERN were next. Only then did I decide the duplicate clues were deliberate!

    I think the duplicates are actually a great learning tool for cryptics. Being forced to find two viable solutions for the same clue really makes you dissect and analyse it.

    All that said, it was a real challenge that took all weekend and several attempts to complete.

    The only quibble is “that” and “than”. A genuine typo?

25. Last week was Brendan’s week, with goats/sheep and… this! As an accountant, I was thrilled to see and solve it (over a few hours’ long cab ride): a beautiful puzzle, full of balance and symmetry!..

    Incidentally, cryptic crosswords, just like bookkeeping, are based on “redundancy” (clue AND definition) and are thus also self-checking; maybe that’s why I’ve taken a liking to them 🙂

    Fully agree with Martin@13 re: brilliance and precision. Bravo Brendan! Thanks mc_rapper67!

26. Are we the only ones who had DOCTOR for 25a? Still works and luckily didn’t affect the rest. Also, any news on Roz? (Only do Saturday Prize so may have missed chat elsewhere)

27. Thanks for the comments so far – much appreciated, as usual…

    My short-term memory must be getting worse because I would almost certainly have solved that previous Brendan, but don’t remember doing so!

    I didn’t spot the ‘than’/’that’ discrepancy – but probably a Grauniadism, as mentioned by keiths above.

    I remember making a note about bookkeeping being that rare word with three double-letters together as I entered it, before I’d got any where near trying to parse it…just one of those things that HAS stuck in my memory!

    I’m off to play golf, so will be off-grid for a few hours…talk amongst yourselves while I am away!…

28. Genius grid fill, a tour de force!
    Solving this felt like a POTTER round the West End, taking in two shows, the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, at the end of which the books have magically been balanced. We are indebted to Brendan and thanks to mc_rapper67.

29. Thanks Brendan and MC.
    Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog.

    My picks: D-E BOOKKEEPING, LIKENESSES, BEDLINEN, BACK THEN and DAINTY.

30. Jemma Q @26: a good point re: DOCTOR. I guess the difference may be that to “doctor” is to purposely falsify, while to “fiddle around” is to change something without a real purpose; but this difference is subtle…

31. Thanks Brendan and rapper.

    Hi all. I found myself picking around the edges and didn’t get the big clue (did get some of the pairs) but therefore a big DNF for me. Felt very ‘feast or famine’ and I assume for those who got the big clue it was all pretty easy.

    Came here to understand the big clue – I still don’t think I get the parsing. I understand the three sets of triple letters in Bookkeeping, but I don’t understand how D-E Bookkeeping “exploits redundancy” (I’m not An accountant but have seen enough to know what it is). Both entries are needed/useful, I’m not sure what is redundant? Thanks

32. Stuart @31 – double-entry bookkeeping means you enter everything twice to have a way of double-checking your work, so it exploits redundancy (the two entries). You can add up the columns and check the rows total the same thing (or when I set up the spreadsheets, I have an automatic crosscheck that flags up there’s a discrepancy by telling me I’m a lemon, which is a trick I learned from a colleague). If your numbers are a multiple of 9 out, one number has been inverted, somewhere.

    [Martin @15 – if you are using the newspaper Guardian app, above where you’d have clicked on More, there’s a list of “Recently visited” and mine has “crosswords” there. Clicking on that takes me to where “More” did so I can still see the list of crosswords and setters.]

33. What a splendid, subtle, symmetrical treat!

    I really enjoyed this.

    I filled in a couple of across answers quickly, before I noticed the mirroring of clues but, luckily, I got them in the right places!

34. Thanks for the explanation Shanne @32. I’m still not sure I would describe that as “exploiting redundancy” as both entries are required, but it’s probably just me being too literal or just plain thick

35. What a feat of setting! And enjoyable to solve as well.

36. Jemma Q @26 I also had ‘doctor’ as an early solve and wasn’t forced to go back to it.
    Clever device and amazingly I only put TERN, my FOI, in the wrong location from the pairs.

37. I was lucky to have entered TERN, CREDIT and SETTER in the correct places before I realised what was going on.

    In these days of copy and paste, I can’t see how a typo could have accidentally arrived in just one version of a doubled clue, so I spent ages trying to understand what ‘that’ was doing in the clue for LIKENESSES. The word ‘brings’ is redundant in that one, and I theorised that a change from than to that would somehow justify its presence. But it remains a mystery to me.

    Thanks to Brendan for a memorable crossword, and to mc_golfer for the colourful blog.

38. Jemma Q & Co. Did you not read @1?

39. I realised what was going on with TERN/ERNE and a couple of other pairs, got the long answer going across and down after getting the O and B of DOUBLE… (and from the enumeration) and enjoyed the rest of this unique puzzle from then on. An amazing idea from this accomplished setter/tester, brilliantly executed.

    Thanks to Brendan and mc_rapper.

40. I solved this excellent puzzle last Saturday morning in the lounge area of Keswick YHA, waiting for the weather to clear before a glorious ascent of Skiddaw. A capital day all round.

    I am a flitter so my first one in was a confident TERN for 11A, which I rapidly saw couldn’t possibly be correct as 1D simply had to be ANTIHERO. I then looked down the list of clues and spotted the device.

    The puzzle and particularly the long clue looked extremely daunting at that point, but the down clues turned out not to be terribly difficult and yielded enough crossers for 13/8 etc to come to mind. (I’m still not happy with the parsing of it however).

    I thought this was a brilliant feat of setting, all the more so as there are very few compromises on Brendan’s customary lovely surfaces. Favourites were the aforementioned ANTIHERO, ETCHES, RETREATS and the LIKENESSES/LANDSCAPES pair. Great puzzle.

41. This was very tough. I thought I was going a bit mad when I read the clues! My first error was to enter POTTER at 5ac as well as HAMILTON at 10ac…

    I could not parse 9ac except that I thought it had something to do with direct debits, or the ‘with first part repeated thrice in second’ of 13ac.

    New for me: RUMMER. Also, for 10ac I never had to think about whether the state of Oklahoma had supported George Washington or joined the union after Washington, so that was new to me. In any case, I had solved it as I knew it was a musical!

42. I initially assumed the repetition of clues was a Grauniadism but persisted. Very enjoyable solve, with LIKENESSES and LANDSCAPES my particular favourites.

43. Yet another display of Brendan’s brilliance – a most enjoyable and absorbing puzzle.

    Many thanks to Brendan and to mcr.

44. Amazingly clever crossword. Struggled for some time particularly in the NE corner. But eventually cracked BEDLINEN after considering BEDSHEET & BEDSTEAD. One of those clues where terms can be read in multiple ways & I had not considered anagram of bend for some reason. All fell into place after that.

45. Glad to get back on Brendan’s wavelength after making very little of the sheep/goats puzzle, though like many others I thought we were in Gruaniad land with the repetitions. Almost completed but missed out on ETCHES and RUMMER, which was new to me. One small quibble in a wonderfully executed puzzle; being a child of the 60s I have never thought of the anti-hero as being an ‘unlikeable character’. Yossarian, Jim Dixon, Arthur Seaton, Billy Fisher, Billy Casper and countless others, flawed though they may be, still strike me as being both likeable and inspirational in helping us do what is even more necessary today, and that is to stand up against stupid authoritarians, wherever we find them .

46. I thought this was tremendous, took some perseverance but the intelligence in the construction was enough to convince me that the signposts are there and with effort you can do it.

47. Like several others I thought for a little while that the publishers had made a big printing error with this puzzle. [Such is the “not seeing the wood for the trees” nature of my OCD tendency to solve in strict number order.] In the end, fitting the pieces together properly was very much like completing a jigsaw where all those blue sky pieces start out looking the same but need to be moved around to fit exactly. (In this case the pencil and eraser were my friends – cf Tamarix@22.) It took me a couple of tries until I eventually finished the grid late last night (Australian time) but I felt huge satisfaction (and was very happy as well) to get a full solution.
    Crosswords like these make me very happy and fortunately offer some calming respite from all that ails the world at present.
    Many many thanks to Brendan for the ingenuity. Big gratitude to mc_rapper67 for a super blog, and to fellow contributors for an interesting read that unfolded above, indicating how well-received this puzzle was by my companion members of this lucky cryptic crossword community.

48. Absolutely brilliant crossword! (Nothing else to add)

49. Biggles A @38: you’re right of course, sorry to have missed that. And I agree with what you said there

50. I am a flitter, but it dawned on me quite early that I had seen 21ac already, and then I found the other duplicates. I pencilled in TERN/ ERNE and TESTER/SETTER lightly until I got the crossers. The key to the puzzle was the big one, 13/8. Anyone not familiar with this accountancy term might have struggled. I thought that it was an ingenious puzzle, and, given the crucial bit of business GK, not too difficult overall, enjoyable even. I didn’t get the full explanations for a few clues, and so needed mc_rapper’s blog for finality, especially the amusing OO-KK-EE reference.

51. [Lovely to hear from Julie@47. It’s good to know that you get so much from the crosswords and from your companions in this community. Good analogy with the identical sky blue jigsaw pieces! ]

52. Superb. I spotted the device quite early, though some entries required crossers to pin them down because of the ambiguity (SETTER vs TESTER etc.). However I had DOCTOR rather than POTTER at 25a and think it just about works (a doctor might work on blood vessels).

53. Brilliant. Such fun!
    I didn’t finish it and I failed to parse that long main clue. But that did nothing to spoil my enjoyment and utter admiration for an unusual puzzle.
    Many thanks to the setter and for the blog.

54. Happily entered POTTER, TESTER, HAMILTON and TERN before skipping the (tricky looking) 13,8 and realising what was going on. Cursing Brendan, but with an admiring smile on my face, I deleted my entries and hopped over to the down clues to get some crossers.
    13,8 was one of my last entries, but wasn’t necessary to complete the grid.
    I really enjoyed this one, after my initial horror! Thanks Brendan and mc_rapper

55. Thanks, everyone. Polyphone@4, I’m slowly reading the biography of Georges Perec by David Bellos — an astounding feat of research and analysis. And Perec was a crossword setter who also wrote about them. Julie@47, doing this also helps me deal with the world.

56. A very clever and creative puzzle from Brendan. I also thought there were misprinted clues, until I realised what was going on. I enjoyed the aha moment.
    A superb blog from mc_rapper with impressive graphics. Thanks especially for the parsing for double entry bookkeeping and thanks matthew@6 for the explanation about placement for DEBITS and CREDIT.
    I loved the pairs, especially LANDSCAPES / LIKENESSES and TINKER / POTTER. I also liked BEDLINEN.
    Thanks to both Brendan and mc_rapper

57. Eileen@43 and others who solve in the same way.
    I know that you start by trying to solve the clues in the order they appear in the paper, as I do. Would it be rude to ask if you entered anything wrongly before the penny dropped? I confidently entered 5a POTTER, 6a SETTER,and 10a HAMILTON before having more luck with ERNE and LIKENESSES. (I didn’t try 9a until I had solved 13/8). I write in pen so the end result looked pretty messy.
    Once I worked out what was going on I enjoyed the solve. Thanks to Brendan and mc_rapper67

58. Pino @57 – not in the least rude!
    You were quicker than I was: my first one in was TERN and so it was ERNE that rapidly pulled me up short – I hadn’t registered 12 and 18 at that point. It was then that I realised that we were in for even more fun than usual from Brendan (like you, I had left 9ac for later) – and how! How on earth does he keep on doing it?

59. Pino &57 et.al. I’m afraid that, like Gervase lately of this parish (who stomped off over the introduction of avatars), I do not fathom the ‘cold-solve in clue order’ method of addressing a puzzle, although clearly many pursue it religiously. It is, as Gervase once remarked pointedly, a CROSSword, and so I fan out using the crossers from a first cold-solved clue, which may not even be in the NW corner but which perhaps just caught my eye, such as an easily spotted anagram. I will resort to cold-solving again only if I grind to a halt. That said, I don’t think I was any better served by this method in tackling this Brendan Prize, where a good deal of cold-solving of down clues as well as across was needed to properly position the DOUBLE-ENTRY answers. For instance, having got WEASEL, I was momentarily lured into entering LANDSCAPES at 12A (not yet having worked out LIKENESSES), but then it seemed unlikely that 4D would end in A, so I cleared 12A, alerted to the probability that the second solution to the ‘artistic representation’ clue would also begin with L.
    Terrific puzzle in the end, and a proper challenge to anyone’s customary solving method.

60. I read the clues in order and solve the ones I can, waiting for crossers for the others.

    Neat = dainty?

    I don’t like this flash-on-and-off presentation. Can’t the answers just stay there long enough for me to read them? Seems like extra work for bloggers to make extra work for commenters.

    Thanks, Brendan and mc_rapper67

61. I have rarely set a crossword down in order to applaud it but I did with this one. Also my typing is slowed down by the blog getting a thumbs up (or two).

    V@60: You’ve lost me. All the answers are given seriatim in the blog. The flashing grid serves only to illustrate the connectedness and symmetry of the puzzle, and as far as it goes any answer can be read fully in the appearance time given. The blogger has gone the extra mile to enhance enjoyment of the offering. I’m sorry but your problem again is…?

62. I do enjoy a Brendan crossword – there is always something different.
    My magpie memory dredges up Brendan lives in Washington state. That might add to the 10/22 discussion, or not.
    Thanks both.

63. Balfour@59
    I’m afraid that, if I were to dodge about solving a clue and then trying to use its crossers, I would miss some until the end.
    I’m more sympathetic to trying to solve in numerical order so that in this puzzle I would have tried 1,2,3 and 4 down before 5 across but I just find it easier to attempt each clue as it comes.

64. Great idea and well executed. I was lucky, as I solve in reverse clue order to start and so wasn’t aware of the trick until over halfway through. With sufficient crossers at that point, I avoided misplacing through ambiguity and finished reasonably quickly. Remarkable to me that the clueing works so well for both sets. Quite an accomplishment. The DEBITS vs CREDIT, and the “brings in” redundancy in LIKENESSES were the only minor blemishes.
    Having tried the hopping around the clues according to crossers found method, I find the first pass through all the clues method works better for me.
    Great fun. Thanks, Brendan and mc_rapper67. Great job by both.

65. Brian Greer@55. Many thanks for the ref to the Bellos bio, which I’ve bought. I had no idea that Perec was a crossword setter, though am not in the least surprised. In my book group we are currently working through Life: A Users Manual – one of the great titles ever, but not one of the easiest reads … . The Oulipo ref for me also referred to your crossword without the letter ‘e’ – one of Perec’s novels – I sort of can’t believe that it was translated into English (though I did in Paris come across a ‘French translation’ of Finnegan’s Wake – my only reaction was What!).

66. I know it’s all been said but this really was a superb puzzle. I’m with Shanne@32 about the built-in redundancy of double-entry bookkeeping and completely with lenmasterman @45 about many antiheroes being commendable. Jim Dixon shaped my personality as an applied researcher.

    Many thanks, all

67. This has to have been one of the most enjoyable, satisfying puzzles I have ever solved. A wonderful progression, so Bravo Brendan! I don’t normally comment on the Prize Crossword, as a whole week elapses and I’ve pretty much forgotten what I initially wanted to say. But this was a memorable experience in every respect. Once I’d got POTTER and TINKER in their rightful places in the grid…

68. Thanks for the continued comments – nothing too controversial, a lot of similar experiences with initial entries in the wrong places and (mainly) praise-ful words for Brendan, to whom thanks also for popping in…

    I didn’t mean to spark too much of a philosophical debate about the benefits of methodicalism vs flitting…I was just searching for an opening line for the blog really! When I ‘speed solve’ I try to be more methodical and scan through all the clues at least once before chasing crossers, because otherwise you might miss the odd ‘easier’ clue/write-in once you start jumping around… Each to their own!…

69. mc rapper
    Redundancy is a synonym of repetition which is what double entry booking is all about. Something I did for 50 years.
    See merriam webster synonym for redundancy

70. Congratulations to Brendan and thanks to mc_rapper67! I had pretty much every parse the same way; only adding that Hamilton may be a Washington follower insofar as under Washington he was a leader of the “Pro-Administration” faction which became the Federalist party.

    I’m a flit-and-build solver, looking for something I can solve first and working from the crossers. My first was ANTIHERO so I avoided the ambiguity with 11A while thinking “huh, could be TERN,” then jumped to write in SETTER in 6A and only then did I see the rest of the clues and say “oh no.”

71. [ Re 9 and 23, in law school we had a compulsory accounting class (so we could read balance sheets, etc.), and the windows were on the left side of the classroom when facing the blackboard. After 55 years I still remember the instruction “debits by the window, credits by the door”. ]

    Thanks Brendan for your customary brilliance – I have retained my copy of your e-less lipogram puzzle – and mc for your excellent blog.

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