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Meursault, the claimant knew exactly what he was talking about because he's setter. No, it's not tosh.

Once again you have ignored the moderator's request that posters should confine themselves to answering specific questions. Gazaar did not actually ask for any help, but you have spelled out the puzzle's secret very explicitly.

Probably unwise of me to post this message because I know you won't be able to resist getting the last word in, as is your wont, something that has been observed several times in the last few weeks.

Quite likely both, Drxx, though you mind is surely closed to me. But imagine the consternation at Bletchley Park when the German Navy began to use an enhanced version of Enigma. I should think that one of the first things they did was to fire off a memo to the effect that this really wasn't very 'fair'...maybe there was some foot stamping as well...and fancy not knowing about the Oerlikon gun. There are numerous mentions in the history of WW2...

meurault
“A solution will shortly be available at the usual place.”
I had a quick look and it turns out you were correct. I know I said that I would not visit his page but I have completed the puzzle already and could not resist looking to see if your info was accurate.
You seem to know quite a bit about the activities of Johannes from Copenhagen.........

I preferred it when the answers - sought or otherwise - were given on a separate thread.

In the interests of accuracy, I should really have said ' I preferred it when any information giving away the theme, and how to get it, were given on a separate thread'.

I don't know how popular the Answers threads have been.

Drxx and merenz, i think 'Once' does indeed indicate an archaism. The Listener editorial rules require archaic, obsolete or regional usage to be indicated. There may be the occasional oversight but it's normally applied without exception.
The format here is much like a composite anagram. A composite anagram might be 'X, this Y (def.) jumbled could be Z (X + Y mixed together). Here there is no jumbling, so it just says X, this Y is Z. It seems fine to me. There's no need for 'with' or any other juxtaposition indicator.

...I omitted, but surely there would have been some pouting and sulking too, that the enemy should do something 'unfair'. And before you go to the barricades with, "what does this have to do with crossword clues ?" - well quite a lot actually. Some of the people Turing and Welchman recruited early on were crossword solvers. But they likely weren't interested in the ones who said that clues "weren't fair".

Malone, following recent interaction with you, I really don't care what you prefer.

Smithsax, yes, I was fortunate to visit Scandinavia many times, and some of the people I spoke to opened my mind a little to the subject. But it was really only when I became interested for my own reasons, that I learned much at all. And I can tell you, one of the books of 'Either/Or' gives vivid description of the streets of Copenhagen, and I was pleasantly surprised to be able to visualise many of the scenes. Though Johannes really belongs to a later book.

I'm not keen on that interpretation murky (but I'm not a setter). Without an effective 'if' element I think the clue lacks an obvious definition - it has two that are equally valid.
I prefer the surface my way too.

Finally finished the crossword which I found quite difficult. I don’t think I would’ve succeeded without the hints on the forum. However, I was unable to find a definition for the answer to clue 11a. I mean the definition of food plants used as fodder. I found an associated three letter word that was old French. Also I thought clue 17a wasn’t very well constructed. Any thoughts would be welcome.

I’ve just finished too Casanova and also found it tough. It took me a while to parse that one too. I finally got it when I looked up the last three letters and then the peculiar word within the definition for that