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Thankfully it’s a nice weekend and I’ve plenty of other things to be doing so can happily give this one a miss!

Congrats to anyone completing this.

I have enough answers that I feel like I should be able to make a tentative start on the gridfill, but everything I try is leading to contradictions rather quickly (e.g. anything I put in the top row is not providing the crossers I need for entering the down answers that I have).

I am operating on the assumption that the first across answer is equally likely to come from set A or set B, likewise with the 2nd across, etc., constrained only by the symmetry and crossing letter restrictions mentioned in the pre-ramble. Is that an accurate assumption?

Perhaps I need to solve a few more clues for this to make sense. Or just head to the swimming pool and forget about it.

Drxx

In future, could you please tone down the language used in your posts, this is a friendly Forum and I do not like to see comments like “dross” and “utter piece of …” .

The fact that you are unable to complete the puzzle does not warrant such language. Perhaps it’s beyond your level of expertise.

The setter has done his best and I am not prepared to let them be lambasted by a member of this Forum.

By the way, I don’t read all the posts on the Forum, there’s only 24 hours in the day, but I know about your post because I have received emails complaining about the content thereof.

Buddy, a few observations. I had solved 23 clues before I was able to start filling the grid. You may get lucky with a few less. Symmetry notwithstanding, one can’t assume that each set is divided equally into across and down answers. Given that every internal letter in answers is checked, my way in was to look at unusual letters occurring infrequently in answers, and speculating whether they might cross

Ha! I have 22 solved, so I guess I am one short of the magic number to get going. I was not operating under any assumptions about how the acrosses/downs are split between A and B (tempting though it is to assume an equal split). Onward and downward,

Thanks.

Speaking or myself, I find Dr XX's posts pertinent and instructive. Rather than calling out his tone, perhaps we could have a better designed forum in which to respond more meaningfully to colleagues.

I'm with drxx on this. I think that his comment was valid, and no inappropriate language was used.

Seconded

Thirded, fourthed and fifthed too.

Well I found this very enjoyable. If people will turn it into a slog by cold-solving 90% first then that's on them. It's a crossword, and a lot of the fun is in playing around with the jigsaw and suddenly having it all fall into place on you. In this case, given the constraints and symmetries, once a few things click you can work out where everything else goes pretty quickly.

That said, I've still no idea what's going on in "Cleans swings..."