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Crossword centre July Special Puzzle: Mate in Two by the Badger

Wa(i)ter holds these colonists of Australia on return for manifold evil confinement (8)

Power to banish saint from Rosslyn Chapel’s dusty source of r(o)ods (7)

In the above clues the letters in brackets are extra.

Thanks

hydra is 'manifest evil' + shortening of 'of' + the usual 2 letters for Australia (reversed) inside.
Scots for 'dusty' (replacing the opening st/'saint' with arm/'power').

...'rods' in the def is American slang.

Thanks

I thought this was a marvellous puzzle. Difficult, certainly, but most ingenious. I am hesitant about the penultimate step. The preamble says that the side to move next is determinable from the gridfill. This is a pretty broad hint, but I don't see it

More worryingly, I can't get the entry for b4 to work. If I am correct, it must be occupied, but I need one of the squares it can move to to be a capture on a3, and that is unclued, which suggests it must be empty.

Everything else works, so i feel I can't be far away, but it's niggling me.

A grid-stare should help with your first problem, quisling, and I have the piece at b4 working with an empty square at a3.
I agree with you, I think this is an ingenious puzzle and a brilliant use of the theme. A puzzle that should have been a Listener, I think.
One slight quibble - did it have to be so difficult (and unfairly so, perhaps)?

Thank you so much, drxx. Your reply kills both birds with one stone. If I have it right, the puzzle is even more fiendish than I previously imagined. But then, I’m no real chess player.

It would have been in the top three Listeners of the year, for sure, and was deserving of a wider audience, so thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Yes, 'fiendish' is a better assessment (I do tend to harp on about fairness} and I'm very pleased you got to see the puzzle, quisling - high praise indeed, coming from you. Well done the Badger!

I do not understand part of the instructions:

Squares with WHITE or BLACK letters contain pieces of the respective colour; otherwise, they contain no piece.

Thanks

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