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Down now to 8 but will keep looking at it between bouts of work. Could somebody please confirm that 7 and 18 across and 11 and 20 down are entered normally. If so it will mean that 42 across and 6 down need changing and I have not got those two yet. A massive hint to those two and to 3 down where I am struggling to find a synonym for "procurator" to go between the E at the beginning and the D at the end would be much appreciated. The latter should help me complete the North-West area where I have the most gaps

7a ? there isn't one 5a changes
18a stays same
11d changes
20d stays same
42a changes ...last 6 letters
6d stays same

42a goddess starts with A, ends with E and has a"beginning " in the middle
6d what Darwin was ...get the word you need from....the ???? of evolution
3d procurator was Pilate

drxx

Interesting analysis. I had not noticed the 15-15-15 split which is very nice and so should have been mentioned in the preamble.

Calima was in the 1993 Chambers which is my main reference. If it is Calina in 2016 (presumably a misprint), reference should have been made in the preamble.

Re truest, I agree with stephen53. it does not equate to Flatter.

The clue for prebend gave the wrong number of letters - probably a misprint.

I dont know Oxy/Schad and have not attempted many of his puzzles. But there are at least these 3 errors in this one.

Thank you again Bunty. Yes, I did mean 7 across. That will certainly give me plenty to work on later.

Hello jigjag and stephen53
I was just trying to give a context where the superlative and comparative senses of flatter/flattest - truer/truest might be considered interchangeable ('the **** of two surfaces'). I may be completely wrong because I don't get too bogged down with grammar in crossword puzzles, but I think the setters and editors do, and if they've made an error here it's a bad one.
I could even try to defend the west/north issue, because I think I've seen this debated before. I believe it's a crossword convention rather than a rule to use N-S in clues for down answers and W-E for acrosses, but we always construct words in English reading L-R. The direction for how answers are to be entered is given under the headings 'Across' and 'Down'. In this respect the setter has given us a correct clue for the construction of the word required, and 'Down' tells us how to enter it.
I think the wrong entry length is probably just a typesetting error.

I'm not really qualified to get into a serious debate about these issues - I'm a solver not a setter - but the people who are qualified don't appear to like justifying their decisions to us mere mortals. And they certainly don't like apologising for the mistakes they do make (there was a discussion on this subject on the forum recently and I enjoyed looking in on it).
I'm sure we will never know the 'truth' in this instance, and likewise the host of other issues we've had recently. Sadly, I do think we're seeing a lot more errors lately - maybe 'they' enjoy a bit of controversy... it might even boost sales.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to chat about it.

drxx

actually I think you are qualified...! I have enjoyed reading your comments on this thread. I agree with you that setters dont like apologising for errors and I have not seen any of them do so here with regard to the numerous errors in recent weeks.

You are right that the frequency of errors is much more than it used to be - not just misprints. In fact I dont attempt "misprint" EVs as there are enough accidental ones without a crossword full of intentional ones.

It would be nice to have an explanation for the errors in this one but you are right - we wont get one.

always puzzled

well done for battling on - hope you have managed to finish it.

I abandoned it about half way through - not enjoying looking up obsure
currencies - and having several errors to deal with.

it has been interesting chatting to drxx and stephen53 re the errors on this one. At least they seem to be errors - or are we missing something?

As you say Jigjag the debate re errors etc. has been interesting. It is all part of life's rich tapestry. Thanks to you and Bunty and others who have given pointers on this thread I have finished it. I didn't help myself by getting a wrong answer to 7 down to begin with. Let's hope that Sunday's is not as labyrinthine.

Slogged through this one but flummoxed by Ancient Queen perhaps takes in a wild animal from Tibet. A firm nudge would be much appreciated!