Didn’t realise it was my turn to do the Grauniad; my apologies for the late post.

A nice easy start to the week.  I am normally one of Rufus’s harshest critics, but this was fine - nice and clean with no contentious clues, and no over-reliance on not-too-cryptic definitions.

Time taken to solve - 5 mins 27 secs

ACROSS

1 AG-ROUND

5 L(APT)OP

9 INFIDELS - IN + (fields)*

12 ORGAN GRINDER

15 ALL(EGRET)-TO

20 COD’S-WALLOP

22 ECONOMY DRIVE - the least cryptic of the clues here

26 RE(LIE)F

27 ARMS RACE - an oldie, but a goodie

28 D(U)RESS

29 LA(SAG)NE

DOWN

2 RUFF - homophone of ROUGH

3 UNDER AGE - UN + (agreed)*

4 DELTA

6 AD(A-GI)O

7 TREADMILLS

8 PAPER CLIPS - another oldie

11 A(GATE)S

13 CATTLE-GRID

14 SLOW BOWLER - excellent!

16 EPONYM - PONY in (<=ME)

18 HARVESTS - (TV shares)*

21 COVERS - double definition

25 ME-TE

Solving time: 17:17, one mistake (4dn/P)

The clues for this puzzle were presented in order of their first letters (specified), with each letter used once (and D and J twice). Probably quite a difficult grid to construct, although impressively there were few obscure words.

I can’t explain XANTHUS (20dn) - any help appreciated.

Music: I’m not familiar with the Mendelssohn work referred to in 26ac, so I’ll go for what seems to be one of the more famous movements, the Spinning Song. Please feel free to call me a philistine and point me in the direction of a better bit.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Sorry for the late post, but I have to admit that I really struggled with this one, and I haven’t quite finished it, as one of the answers still has me beat.

Once I had completed about two-thirds of the puzzle and identified eight of the theme words, I didn’t know how to treat the words in order to enter them into the grid, so I called on Peter Biddlecombe’s assistance.

Given the lateness of the plea for help, Peter worked wonders for me and came through with almost all of waht I was missing, includeing how to enter treated answers into the grid.  Thanks, Peter!

So, what did we have to do to solve the puzzle.  The title and preamble indicates something requires to be changed before entry, but I couldn’t see it.

I had come across eight words which could be loosely defined as “rubbish” or “nonsense” or “disorder”, and I knew that five other slurked somewhere.

After consulting with Peter, we eventually came up with 12 of the 13 words.

ACROSS

11 DEB-RIS(E)

12 RED-D (the author of the puzzle being Dimitry)

16 TRIP-(Swaledal)E

18 BIL(G)E

32 RIFF-RAFF (Jospeh Joachim Raff, a Swiss composer)

36 STUFF

42 we couldn’t get this one, could it be SHIT?

43 (g)LITTER

DOWN

5 C-RAP

8 T-RUCK

29 (<=SNIB-BUG)

37 GAS-H

38 DIR(ec)T

Peter suggested that the tidying which was required was to change one letter in each word to N, thus creating new words, so the grid entries became

ACROSS

11 NEBRIS

12 REND

16 TRINE

18 BINGE

32 NIFF-NAFF (the one that required extra attention)

36 SNUFF

42 SHIN?

43 LITTEN

DOWN

5 CRAN

8 TRUNK

29 NUBBINS

37 NASH

38 DINT

This puzzle by one of the occasional setters was a very fast solve for me.   Got quite a few answers by seeing definitions.     Solving time: 13 mins.

* = anagram    < = reversed

ACROSS

1 NEWCASTLE UNITED   Football club   (Clue in tweets and)*    Nicknamed the Magpies because of their colours, black and white stripes.     Which is why any such bird who has the temerity to alight at the Sunderland Stadium of Light on matchdays is roundly booed.

9 TAF FETA    fat<   feat with the t advanced

11 Shannon A IR P ORT    Ort = fragment = bit

12 THE SE US    Where you’d find Florida (on a map)

13 CREM E DE LA CREM E    merc< (RAC led me)*  + e (close to, ie last letter of, garage)

17 HAMMER AND TO(N)GS     More football   West Ham United nicknamed the Hammers.  inspiring = taking in eg inhaling.

21 ROO(k) FT OP    Man = chess piece.    One of two references to rival newspapers that the Indy generously allows in this puzzle.

22 BRUM (M1)E   Someone from Birmingham.

24   CRABBE  D     Buster  Crabbe  from the 1920s, 1930s.

25  SW A (H) IL 1     Westminster is in London area SW1

26 WIENER SCHNITZEL    (Cheer in west Linz)*    A veal dish, literally ‘Vienna cutlet’ so Linz (in Austria) chosen for the anagram.   Cheer in the sense of food.

DOWN

4 TRA (ns) IT

6 N (UCL) EAR    UCL = University College London

14 E  LABOR ATE    work in US as it’s the US spelling

15 EU RIP IDES     Greek dramatist

18 MU (TAB) LE    Muffin, the Mule, TV puppet in children’s programmes going back quite a bit.

19 T (SUN) AMI(l)     Newspaper reference No. 2

20 C (RACk) OW