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Thanks MPRS, I went down that road as well. I also got confused by the fact that there is also the first 2 letters of a 3 letter "wood" in addition to 4 letters of a 5 letter one.

I don't understand the definition of 4a I'm afraid. The solution seems clear from the wordplay and crossers, but I just don't see it.

Quite a nice puzzle, enjoyed it. I do wish that fifteen squared didn't delay the blog for the prize. I never remember to come back a week later and look!

Hi Khayyam,

1a and 4a both share the same definition ("marked on the surface"), indicated by the ... at the end of 1a and start of 4a.

Aha. Of course, thanks. So trained to ignore the ellipsis that I'm tricked when it's meaningful!

No problem, thanks Khayyam:-)

Yes, nice to see ellipses being used with purpose.

Thought that was fun. I couldn’t recall a setter called Sphinx but I realise now that he is the fictional setter played by Steve Pemberton in an episode of “Inside No.9” and set just one crossword in the Guardian to coincide with the programme

Here’s an article about it…
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2017/feb/28/riddle-of-the-sphinx-guardian-cryptic-crossword-inside-no-9

Ahhh! Thank you Jono, that explains my problems with trying to match Sphinx with the the word that goes around "ultimate in entertainment":-)

When, taken in oirder, FOI was 16a, I thought it was going to be difficult, but in fact it went quite quickly after that. Favourite 17a.
27a seems to have different meanings depending on where you go, but one of them definitely wouldn't match "small"!

btw my interpretation of "Sphinx" was the same as Geeker's.