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Well done Hannah - thanks for keeping the show on the road Dorrien - politics is a load of Balls after all!

Hope you`re OK Kilgore!

Congrats Hannah - great clue!

Thanks Dorrien, does Hannah get a prize?

Congratulations Hannah
Cheers Dorrien for picking up the reins

Thanks for the vote of confidence Dorrien, and to others for their kind comment

As for a prize . . Winning, like virtue is its own reward

I shall now have to brush up on my 'Time-Zone' arithmetic . .

And as a relative newbie, Dorrien's summary may be too hard an act to follow

Stay well

Congrats, Hannah. Thanks for the silver, Dorrien, for running the competition, and taking the time to write such a detailed summary.
Are there different interpretations of what is an 'indirect anagram'? I take it to mean that a synonym of a word in the clue is anagrammed, rather than the word itself. In Kt's #11, the letters of RUG are actually deleted, but not in that order.

Oops Hannah I did forget your prize
You may have had this message before if not you should know
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMfR3bDccOU

Do you need any help setting up the competition?

@ Mattrom
I am no expert and sometimes would like feedback on my attempts.
An indirect anagram to me is any anagram where you have to manipulate fodder before doing the anagram. This could be finding a synonym or subtracting letters. I personally don't like them and generally do not like more than a couple of anagrams in any crossword.

Thanks for the prize Dorrien . . I have seen many recipes for 'home-made' sanitisers; all using highly flammable ingredients

I think that I am OK with the comp. . . Time will tell



With regard to the indirect anagram . .

(Unedited 'cut and paste') from an article which stressed that clues should be fair to the solver . .

Here is an example of a clue of which Ximenes would not have approved:

Beast of burden bothered the players (9)

The “bothered” suggests an anagram, but an anagram of what? “The players” provides too many letters, and “beast of burden” doesn’t fit at all. Now, let us suppose you have got all the letters towards it:

O _ C _ E _ T _ A

Well, the only obvious word that fits is ORCHESTRA, and after some thought it’s possible to realise that ORCHESTRA is an anagram of CARTHORSE (yes, that old chestnut!) and that a carthorse is a beast of burden...

The clue is unfair. It asks the solver to work out an anagram of an unknown word – an almost impossible task. The only way to solve this clue is to get the letters towards it and guess – then work backwards. There is not enough information in the clue itself to lead to an answer – hence its lack of fairness. This was the kind of thing Ximenes was trying to eradicate from crossword puzzles intended for publication in respectable sources.

Here’s another example.

One who sleeps late could be ideal (3-4)

The answer is an anagram of “be ideal” to give LIE-ABED – but the problem with this clue is that there’s a word missing. It should really read

One who sleeps late could be be ideal (3-4)

Obviously this makes no sense (not that the original makes much either) but at least it is a fair clue. In the first case, the word “be” is doing double duty – being part of the anagram indicator and the anagram itself. How can the solver reasonably be expected to predict that?

Thanks, Dorrien, we are seeing it in different ways, then. (but I'm no expert, either)

Well done Hannah, a great clue indeed!
Thanks for stepping up Dorrien, for the extensive analysis, and the bronze!