Thanks for the comments! I appreciate it.
• I was aware that 1D is a bit weird in that it asks you to scramble the answer, not the fodder – do you think this is okay?? I'm undecided.
• Yeah, tacking is a common manoeuvre when sailing – tacking is good, jibing is risky!
• 28D is a mistake – I'm going to fix it. Thanks for pointing that out!
• 32D lacks a proper definition, and I was aware of that. But I thought, well, retching on metal will probably etch it, so I left it as is and considered it 'composer's licence', like the definition overlaps a bit with the instruction. Maybe not a pure clue, but I think it works.
Thanks again for the detailed feedback!
Oliver Hardy 24:58 · 2023-12-08T12:33:49.375Z
Thanks for an entertaining puzzle.
I liked the surface reading for 27A, 16A, 16D, 14D, 30A, 32D, 37A, 24A.
Really liked 33D, 13A,
I didn't like 31D and particularly disliked 7D.
17A I see this as a clever attempt to have a hidden word indicator and its fodder in one word - nice try! "installed in" perhaps but I don't see "install" as a hidden word indicator.
26A the clue works for Algeria, but not ALGERIAN.
21A "first five" suggests F, not V.
20D I'm not sure that ACCEPTING is a valid synonym for "Forgiving". I don't see C as an abbreviation for "church".
1A The definition should be the first word(s) or the last word(s).
32A No definition. Perhaps you could have done something with “wretch”.
Please don't take my comments as criticism; I enjoyed solving your puzzle.
Hi Oliver, thanks for your constructive feedback as always. I agree 31D is marginal. Not sure what you dislike about 7D. "Tumult I ended" = 'multi" and "for many" = "multi". In 17A I was hoping for a repunctuation of "Install" as "In stall" with 'in' being the indicator word. Does that fly? 26A – Algerians are also in Northern Maghreb? 21A – "first" refers to the fact that you need the first letters of "Nouméa uses", i.e. NOUMÉAU (without 'first' there is no hidden word indicator) then "five" refers to V. 20D – they're listed as synonyms in the thesaurus I checked. "C of E" is a common abbreviation of "Church of England". 1A – yes, I wondered how this would go down. I've seen other composers' clues where the indicator seems to operate on the answer not the fodder, and I guess it's something that could be argued for. I.e., if scrambling DTAILED gets DILATED, then scrambling DILATED will get to DTAILED too. But I probably won't be making a habit of this. 32A – I guess you meant 32D. My thinking was that the definition overlapped the fodder since rethching on metal would etch it, but yeah, that one needs some work. Thanks again for the feedback. Hopefully my next crossword is more to your liking!