"Sixes and Sevens" caused Gregson no little amount of grief, with its seemingly endless possibilities raised by the need to jumble every answer before entry. Heraclites emerged early on as the likely author, but his only quotes in ODQ seemed at first to offer little help. "Everything flows and nothing stays" seemed fairly obvious as the rule for across entries, though it didn't add much to what we already knew. Actually some entries contradicted the implication that every letter would go to a different position, which was a slight flaw in the construction. For the down entries, it seemed for a while that "never stepping in the same river" would be significant, and Gregson spent some time with a fruitless effort to get river names showing up in the central row. Then, "the road up and the road down are one and the same" offered promise, but again Gregson was sidetracked by trying to get a particular road name up and down in the central column. Finally the many shared letters between words in the top and bottom half of the grid caused light to dawn: every column was symmetrical. Once this trick was uncovered, filling in the grid was just a matter of cell-by-cell elimination.
Across
1 Ivy's relative accepted a liar is misrepresented
ARALIA (A(ccepted) + jumble A LIAR)
7 Incinerate letter in box
CREMATE (EM inside CRATE)
14 Any girl could be with ire
ANGRILY (Amag. ANY GIRL)
15 Hunt about Spain for ringdove
QUEEST (E (Spain) inside QUEST)
16 Large ant leaving one pheasant disturbed another one
PEAHEN (Jumble ONE PHEASANT minus OS ANT)
17 Smoother spliff about rolled
JOINTER (JOINT + RE reversed)
18 Old partner the vulgar force to leave
EXTRUDE (EX + T(he) + RUDE)
20 Kindly man keeps backward Australian aboriginal woman
BENIGN (GIN rev. inside BEN)
"Amazon" looked likely here for a while, which did not much help the
cause.
21 Sort of disorder in stomach; doc's puzzled
MAD COW (Jumble DOC inside MAW)
22 Refusal note ultimately with no particular blame attaching
NO-FAULT (NO + FA + ULT)
23 British surgeon producing medication
BLISTER (B + LISTER)
24 Porgy and Bess initially piped notes
BRAIZE (B (first letter of Bess) + homophone RES (sol-fa notes))
26 Bluster about right base commission
BROKAGE (OK inside BRAG + E)
31 Trickle has died out in a shallow ridge
RIBLET (DRIBLET minus D(ied))
34 Zebra is meandering about stockades
ZERIBAS (Anag. ZEBRA IS)
38 Colouring material in clay bowl
CAMWOOD (CAM (clay) + WOOD)
39 Parade lacking in interest about one
FLAUNT (UN (one) inside FLAT)
40 The spectator's left stimulant on terrace
DEXTER (DEX (Dexedrine) + TER(race))
41 Non-existent peacekeepers occupy a position in Gabon
UNBEING (UN (United Nations) + BE + IN + G (Gabon))
42 Salt fish in taramasalata, perhaps
PHENATE (HEN inside PATE)
43 He unites lover with popular queen
JOINER (JO (lover) + IN + ER)
44 Delay about one Scots plasterer's initial coat
LAYING (YIN (Scottish ONE) inside LAG)
45 Runs endless sequel broadcast to order
REQUEST (R + jumble SEQUE(L) + T(o)A)
46 Fever over hit vocal melody
MALARIA (LAM rev. + ARIA)
47 Game stance taken by Rudolf Nureyev?
ECARTE (Two meanings)
Down
1 Mutant labia clipping American cut away from stock
BIAXIAL (AX (American spelling of AXE) inside jumble LABIA)
2 Spin doctor in Middle East?
MINDER (Jumble DR + IN + ME & lit.)
3 Fish having one particoloured iris out of its depth
WALLEYE (WALLEYED minus D(epth))
4 Ageing, had bit of a kip by meadow
DATING ('D (had) + AT (1/100 Laotian Kip) + ING (meadow))
5 Whelp nipped hound for yours truly
BRACHET (BIT (nipped) with RACHE replacing I (yours truly))
6 Men turned in picket for prisoners' conditional release
PAROLE (OR rev. inside POLE)
8 Impose measure in favour of Church
ENFORCE (EN + FOR + CE)
9 Stance taken by fencers completely surrounding knight
QUINTE (N (knight) inside QUITE)
10 Observer, elated covering a scrap, freshens reproduction plate
REBITES (BIT inside SEER rev.)
11 Allied acting free agent
AGNATE (A(cting) + jumble AGENT)
12 Berried shrub turned ripe after a month
JUNIPER (JUN(e) + jumble RIPE)
13 Born idle Romeo in club attire, perhaps
BLAZER (B(orn) + LAZE + R(omeo))
19 African men giving support to marketplace music
SOUKOUS (SOUK (marketplace) + OUS (African men))
25 Bad dream in Delaware, for instance
AMERIND (Anag. DREAM IN)
26 Fiddling about starts to anticipate tyro's adoration
DOATING (First letters of ANTICIPATE TYRO'S inside DOING)
27 Amateur stage housing fell all over canopied framework for the
garden
PERGOLA (A + LOG (fell) + REP (theatre company, all reversed)
28 Quaint irregular English pageant
ANTIQUE (Jumble QUAINT + E(nglish))
29 Upset Lear's daughter - a tense bird
TANAGER (REGAN + A + T(ense), all reversed)
"Lear's daughter" is really a bit of a giveaway.
30 Laze about around the start to ball game being this cross
ZEBRULA (B (first letter of BALL) + RU (game) inside jumble LAZE)
31 Composer rings independent state having two fixed lines of
reference
BIAXAL (I(ndependent) inside (Arnold) BAX + AL(abama))
32 Room to manoeuvre shelter above a passage
LEEWAY (LEE (shelter) + WAY)
33 Old bawd in court offers transport for Spenser
CHARET (HARE inside CT (court))
35 Pine, possibly leaving one for Grant
CONFER (CONIFER minus I (one))
36 United labour group admits its stupid blunder
BETISE (Jumble ITS inside BEE)
37 Wrong one in government by right
INJURE (IN (one in government) + JURE (= IURE = right))