On another site I'm involved with the members have started a protest petition to the crossword editor about the quality of the puzzles set by Paul McKenna.
Even for seasoned solvers some of his clues are so obscure that even when the solution is reached it is virtually impossible to work it back to the clue.
The Listener is a doddle compared to Mr Mc's offerings.
Finally bludgeoned my way through to the end, bar 29 Across. (Any offers?) No sense of pleasure or accomplishment. Just a slog - and I'm still not sure of quite a few of the subsidiary word-plays. Agree entirely with comments re Mr McK. His puzzles are not "difficult" in any intellectual sense - merely obscure.
Doesn't quite fit - should that be DISHDASHA? Can't find any kind of word (even with hyphens) that fits DI-HD-SH- (all of which I'm sure are correct). Maybe Mr McK has started to make his own words up...