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Hi Cockie. I bet I can tell you which 7 Across clues you've solved! When I was sitting with my nose up against that brick wall, I too had only solved 7 and couldn't make anything of the other 13. Then I solved a couple more. I won't say any more at this stage but I do hope that you persevere. Cheers

Well that was a struggle and we have yet to completely solve the across clues although that is not strictly necessary.

Hi Simon,

I reckon I too could hazard a pretty good guess as to which 7 clues Cockie has solved. When I read the preamble I thought, "you're kidding, across clues treated thematically before entry and down clues jumbled"! Then I started to read through the clues and managed to solve... 7 of the acrosses on first pass 😀

I'll be interested to share notes at a later date:-)

Hi Brendan,

That would be good. If you want to do it sooner rather than later, you could drop me an email using my name on this site followed by the usual gmail stuff. The more I've thought about the construction of this crossword, the more I've admired it.

Thanks rhsl, but re-reading is not getting me any further! I don't want you to give anything away too explicitly, but another nudge would help!

Thanks

Dylan, I had a revelation when I looked at the number of cells in the grid, the number of across clues and therefore the average length of an across answer. Can the across answers you have be feasible?

dylan - The across clues are all of a type that setters sometimes use but mostly only once or twice per puzzle.
The cleverness is that the clues seem to be solvable according to the surface reading.

Not a big fan of this one. Combining the thematic treatment of the A clues with the jumbling of the D answers makes it pretty impossible to cross-check anything. I did finish, but unsatisfyingly, it came by guessing a string of the A answers when I only had a half-full grid, Googling to find the theme and then back-solving half the A clues (and correcting a couple of wrong D entries).

Thanks Buddy. I had realised that the mean length of the across answers is just under 6 letters, and I had a lot of shorter answers, but I'd assumed that some longer ones which I hadn't yet discovered would balance them out. Now it seems, from your comment and others, that maybe my short answers weren't the whole story?

Dylan, I hope that Buddy has made the difference for you. I too fell into Cagey's little trap, despite suspecting that it was too obvious and essentially inconsistent with the preamble.

I found my way out by spotting words that would fit in the grid and identifying which across clues might, if approached in a certain way, fit those answers. At the same time, Professor Google gave me the title, leading to a quick completion of the puzzle.