DP

I am going to buck the general trend and admit that I disliked this puzzle and agree with another poster that there were too many regionalisms including from across the pond where I have lived and traveled extensively. Also, multiple long answers where more than one appropriate answers may fit greatly detract from the enjoyment of solving the puzzle imho. It astounds me that every puzzle gets rave reviews when the law of averages (and reality) is that they cannot all be winners. I don't want to deny or diminish the thought and effort that goes into creating a puzzle but I am sure there are more people out there of a similar opinion but who don't want to comment or are concerned about being 'crosswordsplained' if they do. Some of the posters are clearly expert crossworders and try to be encouraging but some can be dismissive to any criticism of the puzzle and attribute it to ignorance or lack of intelligence rather than just accepting that there are other valid opinions and that some puzzles are just not that great for a significant minority (possibly a silent majority) of people. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. [Stepping off my soapbox and resuming my crossword journey.]

I appreciate the effort put in by the puzzle maker and I did like a couple clever clues but I agree with others that this was not praiseworthy, let alone enjoyable. Confusing clues with alternate name spellings, numerous obscure proper name clues and awkward syntax. I again put this on the Editors, not the maker. Where was the editing? This should not have made it to publication in this form. With some minor tweaking I think this would have been a really enjoyable challenge of a puzzle if only . . .