Like the last Scorpion puzzle a few weeks ago I found this very challenging but very enjoyable. I wish I could put my finger on exactly what made it difficult for me as each time I filled in an answer it seemed so straightfoward and obvious (apart from one or two) it made me wonder why I’d taken so long. I think it was simply because I had trouble parsing many of the clues - that is, sorting out the definition from the rest and then working out exactly what the clue was telling me to do. Once I’d done that, getting all the wordplay elements seemed to happen fairly quickly.

Solving time 21:35 when last answer (K) was looked up.

I think this is the first “alphajig” since we started the blog. They’re an old favourite of mine - before I started doing cryptic puzzles, I got the Puzzler magazine (still going strong) which has various puzzles with challenges like fitting a set of words into a grid. So when I discovered these in occasional Saturday Guardians, I was ready for the jigsaw part.

A paragraph of moans about the presentation: It’s a pity that the Guardian’s “Berliner” format doesn’t seem to allow the crossword to have a title any more - so the name “Alphabetical Jigsaw” no longer appears. And why the number and setter have to lurk under the grid, when there’s plenty of room next to the “Cryptic Crossword” caption, is one of those mysteries that my newspaper graphical design skills are too limited to understand. Ditto the point of printing any clue numbers in the grid. There could also be some instructions telling you that the clues labelled A start with A and so on, which I’m sure we used to get. Most of us know very well, but give the beginners a clue!

Enough moaning and on to the puzzle … Where across and down answers share starting points, one of two things can happen. A letter can simply have two clues, and you have to decide which goes where. Alternatively, one of the entries can be part of an answer using two grid entries. That’s what happens here - with both As and both Fs coming from the answer at that letter. Fitting answers into the grid is most easily done by solving all the clues of a length like 10 letters and finding that they can only fit the grid in one way. In this case, I’m pretty sure my starting point was the 14-letter answers and the fact that putting DRANK LIKE A FISH in the top one would give the L answer 11 letters instead of 9, so it had to go in the other slot. With U and Z you get a couple of chances to tell me what I’ve missed in the wordplay.