Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

To spot the thematic potential and get everything to work so well is quite a feat, I think - and with a symmetrical grid to boot.
I like the puzzle as much as I dislike the theme (a lot).

I’m glad to hear you have evidently completed this (to me) tremendously difficult puzzle. I only began to understand the second bit of the preamble when I solved 21a.
Please can you enlighten me a little about 23a? American bit champion NFL player (11). I have ??W??RK?E?S but am well aware there must be clashes.

All the crossers clash, jogamel - a US coin (7 letters) + '(to) champion' def a player in the NFL.

Thank you….I had cent……

drxx, I disagree - the theme's fine, but, for me, the execution was poor. I may just be in one of those moods.

Can't think of a single thing wrong with it, biggus56 - are you a mathematician? I'm often at odds with the many mathematicians on these threads.

Can anyone help with 22d.

Doctor with wine lost footing when half-cut (4)

Thanks

krauton - prompted by your q i have just figured this one out!

Defn is first 3 words. wp is half an 8 letter word

Nice puzzle i thought - hadnt seen the mechanism of having clashes in the defn vs the wp within the clue before, which made things harder.

Well, having gone thoroughly up the wrong gum tree with this one, ploughing through the record books etc, I revisited my wordplay clashes...and laughed out loud as the light dawned.

An eXcellent construction from eXtent and some nicely misdirecting clues. 👍