Tide Down

Initially offered to the Magpie, this is another puzzle taking the jigsaw format and it is without a theme.  However, there is more than one possible orientation of the grid and the preamble hints at the correct one: "The orientation of the completed grid is confirmed by the title".  Thus:

NEAP appears vertically in the second column to confirm orientation

SOLVER FEEDBACK

A challenging, fairly satisfying solve, needing some guesswork in the first instance until I had more of the long entries. Five entries with __S_E__ upped the ante nicely. How is -ION- clued in UNCOMPASSIONATE? If ‘peacekeepers’ = UNION that seems rather a loose definition. [Hm; I hadn’t noticed that. Any thoughts?]

Have spent a long time on this only to solve 9 clues. If time permits I’ll look at it again but I fear it may be just too difficult for me. 5/10. 

Proving as hard as was advertised. I have 9 clues still undeciphered despite being assisted by the number of clues that have a Scots linguistic reference. 

I very much enjoyed Eclogue’s puzzle. The 15-letter anagrams were a challenge - but so much more the satisfaction when it comes out. All clues ‘fair’, sufficiently cryptic to give difficulty but no insuperable obstacles. 

A real challenge - having solved several clues I have no idea where to put them. Will persevere.

I spent a great deal of time on 1795 and persevered to the end only out of sheer doggedness (or perhaps masochism).  For most of that time I had no real expectation of success.  If you and your fellow vetters really did manage to complete this puzzle in short order over a few drinks in Cambridge I take my hat off to you. [No, it took very much longer.] It took me several sittings over many days to make any progress at all and, when I had finally got to the end, I realised (owing to the  reference to NEAP in the unches) that I had actually produced the reflection in the NW-SE diagonal of what is deemed to be the "correct" answer!  Eclogue deserves credit for filling a grid exclusively with answers that contain either 7 or 15 letters, but I regret to say that I did not find this puzzle to be a satisfying solve.  Rather too many obscure words for me in a jigsaw (ZAMBUCK, LALLANS, CLOISON, NACARAT, ZADKIEL).  Looking over it again now, I readily acknowledge that most of the clues seem fair enough, but, given that well over half of them needed to have been solved before a meaningful assault could be started on fitting entries into the grid I do wonder how many people actually finished it.  Enjoyment factor 5/10.