Just one previous puzzle from Craft (no 4704 Movement) about nine months back, and that gave some background to our habit of fiddling around with the time every few months. This week seven clashes greeted us (thanks for being nicely specific), and we were told that each clash generated just two letters so not as tricky as some clashfests that we’ve had recently. Mind you, we had to enter the cashing letters in a specific order. Eight clues had an extra word and someone (7,7) had to be highlighted in the final grid..

Not too much to say here but everything fitted together smoothly. I noted that there were a lot of geographical locations in the clues, from Holland and Italy to Australia and Ontario, but unlike Yorick’s recent puzzle they purely helped with the wordplay.

It was spotting CHARLES PEARSON rather prominently located in the top and bottom rows that caused a quick google to reveal his involvement in the development of London’s Metropolitan Line, the first underground railway in the world.

The extra words to be dropped from the clues — tub ef romp addington Tonto far Ring Don — told us that it ran from Paddington to Farringdon. The clashes were the initials of the stations it ran through: Paddington (Bishop’s Road), Edgware Road, Portland Road, Gower Street, King’s Cross, Farringdon Street.

Finally, we had to circle the stations and draw a line passing through relevant cells. Twelve cells contained the letters for METROPOLITAN that could be seen linking the stations and thus required a very specific line to be drawn. Nearly missed that!!

Thanks, Craft, a very pleasant start to the year.