You are all welcome. I hope it catches the interest of some other folk out there.
Couple of late nights, so just got to it.
Very easy this month, but wasn't thrilled with the theme; rather scattered & no symmetry in the grid, but at least consistent in using the first 3 letters & the perimeter.
Always interesting to see which clues are favourites. I felt a number were rather weak; maybe biased because of the above.
@Ginge
Agree on 31A. 23D - not bad.
14D has nice surface reading re the gambling Mecca.
@Aristophanes
41A - liked the wordplay, but the def baffled me. Just saw it now - was committed to the noun !
I've relented. In retrospect, there were quite a few other sweet ones. Easy, but they read well:
A - 17, 19, 26*, 28, 33. D - 2, 4, 8,
Americanism - 7D
British-ism ? - 20D (it's ZEE in the USA)
I'm confused about wordplay in 39A - "joins up" ? The rest seems clear.
42A is priceless. A fascinating bio:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Nesbit
She actually flipped over an "architect", but there is an eerie connection with the "playwright" (same era):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_Builder
Read the Plot summary.