And another new one online here.
I actually finished this one before number 6, and in my haste to complete it, mucked up one of the clues (21a) by making an anagram that was one letter short. It now has a new clue, and a couple of other clues have been slightly tweaked – hopefully for the better.
As with my previous themed puzzle, knowledge of the theme is not required to solve it. Two of the solutions are obviously linked, the rest less obvious unless you are familiar with what it is that links them…
Brendan in the Guardian recently had a puzzle with a theme that was not made explicit – you either spotted it or you didn’t. I like this approach. Sometimes, knowing the theme or having it mentioned explicitly in the clues can make it too easy to solve – or too difficult, if you don’t know the subject. I prefer themed solutions to be words that stand alone, and clues to be solvable without requiring specialist knowledge. I think next time I do a themed puzzle, I’ll take the Brendan approach and not mention the theme at all.
