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You won no.5000? Congrats!
That was one I really didn't enjoy. I had hoped they would do a themed puzzle to mark it. Instead they put together the Traveling Wilburys of crossword compilers who came up with something that ticked all the boxes but felt unsatisfying.

It would be nice to see examples of Ximenean rule-breaking in a cited puzzle, but that never seems to happen does it?
However, just for the record, The Sunday Times does not sit firmly in the Ximenean camp, and never has. The preference is for grammatical correctness, but that's pretty much as far as it goes. Some critics say a CD clue is non-Xim but – regardless of the ST not being strictly Xim anyway – this stems from a misunderstanding of the exhortation that a clue should contain “definition, wordplay, and nothing else”. This does not mean a clue must contain wordplay. It addressed the bad old days habit of setters including verbiage which had no connection to definition or wordplay but was merely there to pad things out for the sake of surface. Talking of which...
In the blog for 5022, one commenter mentioned 3 clues containing what he considered an extraneous “a”. Let's take a look and justify each:

Much love for a card game (4) FARO
Miss a trick (5) DODGE
A way to secure principal campaign fund (3,5) WAR CHEST

Clues 1 and 3 are simple. The “a” is there to indicate that the solver has several choices. “Way” for WEST could be saying the two are synonymous, but they're not. WEST is “a way”, not “the way”. A similar thing applies to the FARO clue but this also relies on spoken English. If someone asks you “What is faro?” you'd respond with “it is a card game”, not “It is card game”.
The DODGE clue uses a different principle, again to aid the solver. DODGE can be noun or verb, but the definition as a verb doesn't work. “A trick” confirms that a noun is needed.
In each case, the “a” is a specific part of a definition and by no means extraneous. It isn't required, of course, but the setter breaks no rules by adding it for clarity.
When posters say a crossword breaks Xim rules, it would be nice to see the occasional clue given as an example.

Thank you for your post Dean Mayer I presume 🤗

Thanks, Anax. That was all very interesting. I know nothing about the Ximenean stuff and have never really wanted to. It seems to get people hot under the collar at times!

I'd been meaning to post anyway, to say that this week's Sunday Times puzzle proved the value of 'be careful what you wish for'. I struggled - valiantly - with last week's one, and there were some slightly angry mutterings at times. When I did today's puzzle, it was a completely different experience. 90% of the answers were written in straight away, and the others took only a few minutes to work out. I then had a little moan to myself, wishing I'd had something more challenging, satisfying etc.

Hello!

Good Afternoon, anax. Thanks for your input - it's appreciated. I certainly hadn't meant to imply that setters should stick slavishly to Ximenean principles, that would be foolish of me. I simply feel that some clues stray too close to GWIT territory to be fair.

As I have noted previously, Araucaria drove a bus through the principles but managed to be hugely entertaining whilst doing so.

Can I add how good it is to see setters on here, so thanks to Anax for putting his head above the parapet. I know Ifor does the same on his themed puzzles, and Oyler on his numericals. Anything which can bridge the gap in understanding between setters and solvers has to be applauded