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Fair enough. I don't own or use Chambers. Usually I refrain from commenting on dubious-looking usage in cryptic clues, because it almost always winds up justified per Chambers.

Also, if you look up “godless” in Chambers, def#2 says, “Living without believing in or obeying God”. If we use God as the proper name for the god in monotheism, then that definition fits the answer, doesn’t it? “Godless” in the clue is upper case

geeker

re 10a, your parsing is much better than mine, and explains why T must go. Thanks.

Well, that was hard. I started at 2.30pm and finished at 6.15pm. Then a break to get the washing in and set up the sprinkler on a bit of the garden. We still have had very little rain and despite dire warnings of a storm, I think it will just be windy here.

I found the crossword very hard, especially the parsing. I put circles round the ones I couldn't fully parse. I think I have 12 circles. I finished and didn't cheat, though I did use Dan Word to confirm a few of them were right. I agree with Chris about the definition of 21ac being wrong. Despite the explanations above, I still can't see the parsing for 19ac. I don't intend to list all the ones I couldn't parse, but I would like to know where the first word in 11ac came from. I found the disguised anagrams annoying. And the abbreviations I've never seen before.

My FOI was 12ac closely followed by 16ac, my LOI was either 22d or 31ac, neither of which I could completely parse.

My CODs were 9d, 28ac,17d and 8d

mdmaylwin
You are completely missing the point. Yes, godless does mean that, but the solution to the clue doesn't.

roof, 11 parses as 4 ("swing") surrounding 4 ("golfer was" regularly).

I enjoyed this puzzle. Thank you Fed, if you read this. Several very amusing bits of misdirection. My COD is 5a, which for ages I couldn't fully parse, and then it suddenly hit me, and it amused me greatly. At the other end of the scale, the clue I like least is 31a; OK, an explanation has been given which sort of justifies "godless", but I still don't like it. There is just 1 clue which I can't fully parse, and since nobody else has indicated problems with it, maybe I'm missing something that should be obvious. It's 7d. Obviously "beat", and I suppose "tip of baton" has the obvious meaning, but "rattle mostly"?

Rattle as in disconcert

Is it a word with a w lost? If so it seems to me a very weak clue. I thought of that, but thought there must be a better explanation.

That was how I read it, micky. Cleverer minds may come up with something better, but I doubt it