Solving time: 55 minutes with the last quarter-hour on 15ac, 13ac and 13dn
I got off to a great start at the top of the grid but then slowed down drastically so that I was beginning to wonder if I would ever finish without recourse to aids. Writing the blog wasn’t exactly a doddle either, and there’s one parsing I’m not sure of.
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. “Aural wordplay” is in quotation marks. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
| 1 | Furniture component well attached to lower surface (9) |
| BEDSPRING | |
| BED (lower surface), SPRING (well) | |
| 6 | Revolutionary way figure presents (5) |
| GIFTS | |
| ST (way – street) + FIG (figure – abbreviation) reversed [revolutionary] | |
| 9 | Call telephone number about lock (7) |
| RINGLET | |
| RING (call), then TEL (telephone number – abbreviation) reversed [about] | |
| 10 | Amateur mural ultimately delineated with felt-tip pen (7) |
| DABBLER | |
| {mura}L [ultimately] contained by [delineated with] DABBER (felt-tip pen). I didn’t know this, but Collins has: dabber – a felt-tip pen with a very broad writing point, used esp by bingo players to cancel numbers on their cards. ‘Delineate’ can mean to set boundaries, so I guess that justifies ‘delineated’ as a containment indicator. | |
| 11 | Discussed current plan (5) |
| DRAFT | |
| Aural wordplay [discussed]: “draught” (current of air) | |
| 12 | Scientist’s novel shocked nation (9) |
| NEWTONIAN | |
| NEW (novel), anagram [shocked] of NATION. The apostrophe S is crucial to the definition here. |
|
| 13 | Scraps publicity charges for boring items (8) |
| BRADAWLS | |
| AD (publicity) is contained by [charges] BRAWLS (scraps). This is a tool for boring holes, resembling a small, sharpened screwdriver. ‘Awl’ appears quite regularly in crosswords and I’m not sure whether it’s an alternative name or a similar device that differs in some way. | |
| 14 | Asian city a German visited regularly (4) |
| AGRA | |
| A, G{e}R{m}A{n} [visited regularly] | |
| 17 | Shy to caress, releasing anxiety (4) |
| TOSS | |
| TO, {care}SS [releasing anxiety – care]. ‘Shy’ in this sense is perhaps best known from the coconut shy at fairgrounds and fetes. | |
| 18 | Live in backward sleepy area somewhere in Spain (8) |
| BENIDORM | |
| BE, then IN reversed [backward], DORM (sleepy area – informal abbreviation of dormitory) | |
| 21 | Lacking practice, fix cocktail (5,4) |
| RUSTY NAIL | |
| RUSTY (lacking practice), NAIL (fix). NHO this. Typical ingredients are Scotch whisky (45-60 ml), Drambuie (25-30 ml), Ice, Lemon twist (optional). | |
| 22 | Sketch encapsulates back of designer garment (5) |
| SKIRT | |
| SKIT (sketch) contains [encapsulates] {designe}R [back of…] | |
| 24 | Following cut, Freudian slips not broadcast (7) |
| UNAIRED | |
| Anagram [slips] of {f}REUDIAN [following cut from it] | |
| 25 | Foodstuff from plant covering lake roughly to the west (7) |
| TREACLE | |
| TREE (plant), containing [covering] L (lake) + CA (roughly – circa) reversed [to the west] | |
| 26 | Old obsolete Tesla parts returned (5) |
| DATED | |
| T (Tesla – logo) is contained by [parts] DEAD (obsolete) reversed [returned]. Edit: Thanks to Paul for pointing out that Tesla (T) was an SI unit before it became a car brand. I never got that far in my O-Level physics. | |
| 27 | Set period to tidy up place again (9) |
| REDEPOSIT | |
| Anagram [tidy up] of SET PERIOD | |
| Down |
|
| 1 | Inferior shelters engineers exposed (5) |
| BARED | |
| BAD (inferior) contains [shelters] RE (engineers) | |
| 2 | Not totally evident a lass is tantalising healthcare worker (6,9) |
| DENTAL ASSISTANT | |
| Hidden in [not totally] {evi}DENT A LASS IS TANT{alising}. Amazing! | |
| 3 | Splendid taking up tour of chambers overlooking river (8) |
| PALATIAL | |
| LAP (tour) reversed [taking up], AT{r}IAL (of chambers) [overlooking river]. Two of the chambers of the heart are the left atrium and right atrium. Plural = ‘atria’, and pertaining to / of these = ‘atrial’. This answer appeared in yesterday’s puzzle and gave some commenters a problem. | |
| 4 | Where circus acts perform bounds of lunacy with determination (8) |
| INTENTLY | |
| IN TENT (where circus acts perform), L{unac}Y [bounds of…] | |
| 5 | Happen to stop working (2,4) |
| GO DOWN | |
| Two meanings. The second was obvious as we are all used to systems going down, but I had to turn to Collins for the other one: To go down means to happen. [informal] ‘What’s going down? Any ideas?’. I thought everyone said ‘What’s occurring?’ these days. | |
| 6 | Turning fat, short skinny monkey (6) |
| GIBBON | |
| BIG (fat) reversed [turning], BON{y} (skinny) [short] | |
| 7 | Breaking down feelings with Capitol riots (7,2,6) |
| FALLING TO PIECES | |
| Anagram [riots] of FEELINGS CAPITOL | |
| 8 | Tattered rag’s first of many torn using physical force (6-3) |
| STRONG-ARM | |
| Anagram [tattered] of RAG’S + M{any} [first of…] + TORN. As in strong-arm tactics. |
|
| 13 | Discuss speed on a cycle (3,6) |
| BAT AROUND | |
| I’m not sure of this one, a kind of reverse-cryptic perhaps? TAB (speed – drug) reversed [on a cycle] = BAT AROUND. Or am I missing something obvious? If my parsing is correct I felt the clue needed a question mark. Edit: Thanks to those below who have pointed out that some sources have ‘bat’ = ‘speed’, which certainly simplifies matters. | |
| 15 | Dispirited and fed up with tardy daughter (8) |
| DEFLATED | |
| FED reversed [up], LATE (tardy), D (daughter) | |
| 16 | Thoroughly investigates lodgings of Parisian with record (4,4) |
| DIGS DEEP | |
| DIGS (lodgings), DE (‘of’ Parisian), EP (record) | |
| 19 | Cross top of range by climbing concealed nets (6) |
| HYBRID | |
| HID (concealed), contains [nets] R{ange} + BY reversed [climbing] | |
| 20 | Look chestnut horse over (6) |
| GANDER | |
| RED (chestnut) + NAG (horse) reversed [over]. I’m a little surprised that ‘gander’ meaning ‘look’ appears to have originated in the USA, something to do with geese having long necks which they stretch to stare at things. | |
| 23 | River split after type of junction (5) |
| TRENT | |
| T (type of junction), RENT (split). The third longest river in the UK after the Severn and the Thames. | |
re 13 down. Collins has ‘bat’ as a synonym for ‘speed’. e.g. ‘to go at a fair bat’.
Thanks. I have added a note to my comment.
I definitely didn’t twig the TAB = SPEED (drug) part of the clue. I must be going to the wrong parties.
Anything I know on the subject of drug jargon has been learned from doing Times crosswords!
For me tabs were always acid – LSD. Not that I’d know, of course 😉 Tiny squares of blotting paper.
Around 90 minutes. My initial burst solved the RHS. I was getting no where with RHS not expecting a hidden word clue in a 15 letter clue. I left it for 30 minutes and when I came back saw the hidden phrase and the RHS came quickly after.
Thanks Jack.
I too accelerated my solve by taking a break, in my case to watch a YouTube premiere. When I returned I made steady progress, but it wasn’t easy. A gibbon is an ape, not a monkey, and I’ve never heard of Benidorm. Like the blogger, I am familiar with the Rusty Nail, and I didn’t know that meaning of bat either.
Time: 42:42
The second definition of “monkey” in Collins is “any primate except man.” But I applaud your pedantry. I’d never heard of BENIDORM either, and it doesn’t look particularly Spanish. l love discovering new places simply thru wordplay.
Thanks. I also found that when writing the blog having queried the clue myself.
Benidorm, like many places in Spain, was originally an Arabic name.
26:13 but not very enjoyable as there were a few things I couldn’t parse, including the NHO sense of ‘bat’, NHO ‘dabber’, the ‘atrial’ component of PALATIAL, and DRAFT (didn’t spot the homophone). Despite not being on wavelength it felt like a good puzzle. Thanks awl!
Not to0 mention that draft and draught are pronounced completely differently in the US.
I have an American friend who pronounces them the same. Maybe it depends where you’re from.
A DNF in 33 minutes with a typo for STRONG-ARM. I’ve had a few lucky completions lately so I suppose I can’t complain, but…
Chambers also has “Speed, rate” as sense 10 for BAT as a noun; new to me.
Thanks to Jack and setter
I think Tesla being T is not from the car-company logo but the fact that tesla is the SI unit for magnetic flux density and its abbreviation is indeed T. I liked the 15 letter hidden, which reminded me of a similar hiding of CARDIFF ARMS PARK decades ago (which I’m embarrased to say I failed to spot at the time). My LOI was PALATIAL once I remembered that “afib” stands for “atrial fibrillation”. No problem with RUSTY NAIL having lived in Scotland for years (its ingredients are all Scottish).
Yes, T is the unit, not the (ill-famed, now) car manufacturer.
I also looked up BAT.
Never heard of DABBER, but DABBLER seemed obvious.
LOI TOSS. Amazingly difficult clue for a four-letter word. Bravo, setter!
Second day in a row for PALATIAL!
In the USA, we spell the word for “current” DRAFT, so a Yankee puzzle wouldn’t dub that a homophone but a double definition.
12:51. I was helped a lot by having had PALATIAL yesterday otherwise I think I’d have been slowed down by that clue.
I was surprised to see people hadn’t heard of BENIDORM but I guess that shows how British it is, being very popular in the 1970s and 80s then becoming seen as rather naff. There was a fairly long running TV sitcom here of the same name.
Well that is one helluva hidden at 2dn, if I’d seen it early on it would have saved me a deal of trouble in the tricky NW. All up an OK puzzle but some elements I did not warm to, like the PALATIAL wp, the bat thing and the Tesla ref in DATED. 30.34, with LOsI BRADAWLS and BAT (I had the AROUND part already). Thanks Jack, especially for sorting out TREACLE which I couldn’t parse.
From Floater (Too Much To Ask):
One of the boss’s hangers-on sometimes comes to call
At times that you least expect
Trying to bully you, STRONG-ARM you, inspire you with fear
It has the opposite effect
Thanks, Jack, for clarifying several semi-biffs.
Regarding GO(ing) DOWN, isn’t this an Americanism which has gradually replaced the more British ‘(what’s) going on’?
And you are quite correct about ‘What’s occurring?’
Doesn’t ‘what’s occurring’ come from Gavin and Stacey? I don’t know how I know that (if it’s true), I’ve never watched the show.
It probably was used in ‘Gavin and Stacey’ but I think the expression predates the series by many years. I am sure it featured in ‘Minder’.
You’re not wrong. Tidy.
Also Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It: “What’s occurring, Hermann Goering?” Possibly in bad taste.
We used to say, “What’s occurring?”, when I was at school, in the third quarter of the last century, when we were trying to sound more interesting – the commonplace term would have been, “What’s up?”, or when speaking to an adult, “What’s happening?”.
So that expression, at least, long predates “Gavin and Stacey”.
12.50 with several (mostly non-semi-) biffs : PALATIAL, TREACLE, STRONG-ARM, DATED.
Pleased to get the excellent long anagram and inclusion early on, surprised the old favourite GODOWN as a warehouse didn’t feature.
LOI TREACLE
COD DENTAL ASSISTANT
I think it’s time we stop
Children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?
Well that’s my earworm for the day!
Yes exactly mine to….There’s something happening here…
17:35
Ah, my old nemesis PALATIAL. Yesterday I was but a wide-eyed greenhorn fresh off the bus. Today I bestride the grid like a collossus. I mean colossus!!! Oh dear, back on the bus I go.
As per our blogger, to whom thanks, got off to a flyer from the top but then really struggled. Pleased when I finally got BAT AROUND but FALLING TO PIECES proved only too apt. First mistyped BENEDORM and REDOPOSIT and then messed about with DEEP DIVE or DIVE DEEP which meant losing my SHIRT altogether. Comeuppance!
Great puzzle though.
I toyed with deep dive as well. It was half right but not necessarily in the right order.
The unacceptable SHIRT immediately sprang to mind…
DNF, have it a good go but SW corner defeated me. Had to use Chambers Crossword Dictionary for a list of cocktails to get RUSTY NAIL. This opened up that corner, biffed DATED, but just could not see HYBRID with the concealed/nets device confusing me.
NHO of BRADAWL. Only got PALATIAL because of yesterday, didn’t know ATRIAL.
COD DENTAL ASSISTANT
39 minutes with LOI BAT AROUND, only after the vaguely remembered BRADAWLS came to mind, and that was after ten minutes staring at the page. I did then think of ‘going at a fair bat’, for the first time in my life wondering what bat really meant in that context. COD to RUSTY NAIL, because I got it. It’s a mystery as to how, as alcoholic drinks only come in three categories in my life; beer, wine and whisky. Enjoyable until the last ten minutes. Thank you Jack and setter.
36 mins. Felt more like a Friday. I’ll be interested to see what the snitch is. Hard graft but gradually yielded. Can’t imagine thinking of treacle as a foodstuff- ugh!
With brimstone preferably – workhouse staple according to Dickens.
11:34. BAT seemed the most likely word but I wasn’t entirely sure about either of the required meanings.
Just under half an hour.
– For 13a, was fixated on ‘publicity’ giving PR for quite a while and only got the vaguely familiar BRADAWLS once I let that go
– Had heard of a RUSTY NAIL without knowing what’s in it
– Took ages to see that 2d was a hidden and get DENTAL ASSISTANT
– Wasn’t sure which vowel would go in B_T AROUND as I didn’t know bat=speed and thought it could be BIT, as in bit rate, but eventually I opted for BAT
Thanks Jack and setter.
FOI Skirt
LOI Bat around
COD Gander
56m 38s
In 1ac I thought ‘lower surface’ might be a bovine reference but no…
2d was a d’oh moment when I saw it.
Thanks, Jack.
OXHIDE! That was my first thought, you can get such furniture.
I’m glad I wasn’t alone in my interpretation of ‘lower surface’!
21.34
Never really felt on the wavelength for this but submission was duly wrestled. It’s always a bit discombobulating when you have B__AROUND and are thing “Whaaat?” Especially when the crossing letter is as good a clue as TOSS.
Thanks Jackkt/setter
All correct, completed over breakfast. Was helped by the reappearance of palatial and by twigging 2d quickly.
47 mins of real struggle. FOI TRENT after about 10 mins starting parse from 1ac. Gradually accelerated only to crawl over the line back at LOI BEDSPRING.
So far off wavelength I struggled to tune in at all. Nothing I can put a finger on, no complaints, just … different.
Brilliant long hidden.
Ape and monkey are different as any Pratchett fan will know.
Thanks both.
Raced through this but hit a wall with BRADAWLS, the BAT of BAT AROUND and PALATIAL. Really wanted a PR in the boring item which got me fixated on whether ‘put around’ was similar to ‘put about’ and could either mean discuss? No time as I had to come back for those three. Finally constructed the nho of BRADAWLS which allowed the last two to fly in. Never did parse PALATIAL.
Liked the DENTAL ASSISTANT hidden. It took far too long to spot.
Thanks blogger and setter.
25 minutes ending with the BAT part of 13d. Which I didn’t much like. A BRADAWL I think is an awl for making holes for then hammering in BRADS which are like tacks. Used in furnishing.
I was surprised BENIDORM was unknown to our overseas solvers, aside from the TV series it’s one of the largest holiday resort cities with 75,000 population and some scary modern tower blocks.
The hidden 2d was impressive.
Had everything bar BEDSPRING and PALATIAL after 15 mins, but those two kept me head scratching for another 25 mins. Shouldn’t have wasted the time.
I thought I was running a little slow at 18.45, but it appears that’s not too shabby. That BAT/TOSS crossing was a hold up, and I took a while to get past DIGS INTO which took no account of the French record.
Much to my surprise, I have recently taken up bingo, so the DABBER is no mystery to me.
I proffer as the definitive comment on monkeys and apes this from Trading Places, with apologies for the profanity.
I really enjoyed this. Took a while to get started and began in the SE and worked my way anticlockwise around the grid. Some of the parsing was tricky, RINGLET for example had to be ring/call but couldn’t see telephone number as ‘TEL’ but it had to be, thanks for the parsing. BRADAWLS went in easily as it’s a tool I’ve been using all my life: a ‘brad’ is a small nail, hence brad+awl. Another here who thought of cows from the ‘lower’ in BEDSPRING but saw what was going on eventually. I also missed the hidden in 2d DENTAL ASSISTANT but as soon as I saw ‘a lass is’ I saw assistant so in it went. COD to NEWTONIAN.
Thanks Jack and setter.
Took a while and a break in between. Couldn’t finish the NW until I revisited. What’s going on versus what’s going down; Marvin Gaye v Buffalo Springfield? BRADAWL I knew from my engineering days. I went to Benidorm once as part of a golf trip; a human zoo with more mobility scooters per sq mile than anywhere else I’d reckon. Anyways, thanks Jack and setter.
Foudn this very tough with BRADAWLS/BAT AROUND being the last to yield. It might not be right but I prefer Jack’s ingenious explanation for BAT.
Thanks to Jack and the setter.
DNF in SW. Pretty tough, especially for a Tuesday.
9a Ringlet, biffed as I never linked telephone and number together to get tel, so I couldn’t explain “number”. Grrr.
10a Dabbler. NHO dabber so biffed. I was OK with dabber as a word, but according to Wiktionary it applies only to the marker pens used in Bingo to mark one’s card, as confirmed by Zabadak above, so esoteric to put it mildly. It didn’t help that “ultimately” could have provided either D or L. Dabbled looked OK to me but didn’t fit. Humph.
13a Bradawls. “All I live by is with the awl” Shakespeare, line given to a cobbler; was it in Julius C? Dad called awls catstabbers; he was more of a dog person.
2d Dental A, COD for the stunning hidden.
I too would have used the Chinese warehouse for 5d Go down. Didn’t get it. Weak def IMHO.
13d Bat around. Didn’t get it. Weak def IMHO.
Thanks jackkt and setter.
G’day all. Did not do yesterdays but did Saturdays in a quick time (for us).
Although the start to this one was promising, it took a lot longer.
Thought 2d was a clever hidden, and admired the cocktail in 21ac.
A couple of clues where the parsing was uncertain or just plain a mystery:
Clearly had not learnt the lesson with ‘revolutionary’ for 6ac, but missed the shortening ‘fig’ for ‘figure’ which also did not help.
TEL as a shortening for ‘telephone number’ also a lesson learnt for 9ac, although the answer appeared obvious early on.
18ac BENIDORM was finally achieved from parsing and verified on line as a place.
Penny finally dropped for 13d when synonyms were located.
MER for ‘splendid’ being PALATIAL 3d – despite its apparent popularity.
Again, strange character difference between Saturdays and week days?
Think we might stick to doing one or two during the week maybe Tuesday, and Thursday or Friday just to be bloody-minded, and Saturdays.
Thank you to the setter and jackkt.
37:09. Very good but quite a struggle. LOI the tricky HYBRID. I liked DIGS DEEP and TREACLE.
FALLING TO PIECES always jars with me, ever since Patsy Cline did it many years ago. I mean, you’ve got two choices:
(a) go to pieces, or
(b) fall to bits
This HYBRID is just absurd. Er, I wonder if it’s just me?
No, it’s not U – even if U were tongue in cheek.
To use a line from a character in ‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’, it is (like some other clues) ‘a little much’.
But I have too much to say as it is and have to draw the line somewhere.
At 5dn the happen meaning is according to Chambers US slang, to Collins it’s just informal. Perhaps we should have been told? It certainly gave me much pause for thought. NHO dabber as a felt-tip, nor bat = speed. Nice hidden at 2dn. 47 minutes.
There seems to have been a disproportionate amount of puzzles recently that were generally good and fair but spoiled by one or two quirky obscurities. The intersection of BAT clued by speed and BRADAWL (quite gettable once you know the first letter) made this another for me.
A pleasant challenge, all done in 40 minutes. I made steady progress until I had to solve the NW corner and ran aground there until the penny dropped at 2dn. NHO the felt-tip pen at 10 ac but DABBLER had to be right. I recall catching a bus from Malaga which went through Benidorm and Marbella many years ago and was pleased not to be staying at either of them. Did not know the use of Tesla as a scientific unit in parsing 26ac, so thanks for the explanation. Also NHO BAT in the sense required in 13 dn, but BAT it had to be for the discussion. I also share the misgivings already expressed about the use of PALATIAL to mean splendid rather than extensive, but no doubt the dictionaries have spoken. 2dn is the best hidden I have seen since BATH AND WELLS (which was not so long) some years ago.
FOI – AGRA
LOI – PALATIAL
COD – NEWTONIAN
Thanks to jackkt and other contributors.
Aren’t Benidorm and Marbella in opposite directions out of Malaga?
23:50 – slow in the south after a speedy start. BENIDORM must surely be famous as the epitome of a particular type of tacky Spanish seaside resort (whether fairly or not) but perhaps it is a purely British thing.
Now we all know what palatial means…
I got distracted by an email arriving just as I started the puzzle and found 1,47 on the clock when I jumped back to the grid, so I was reasonably pleased with my 24:05 (net 22,58) after a very slow start. My FOI was AGRA. DIGS DEEP and SKIRT arrived next, and I worked my way clockwise from the SE, which I’d filled apart from 7d, BENIDORM and TREACLE, which fell into place after FALLING TO PIECES came along. The NE was last to succumb with STRONG ARM and FALLING TO PIECES leading the way, and DABBLER bringing up the rear. Thanks setter and Jack.
35 mins, the last five of which were spent staring at B?? & what turned out to be TOSS.
Don’t know why, perhaps it’s my mood ( very long drive this morning, I’m in Beaune) but I didn’t enjoy this one. Quite a few loose clues I thought.
Thanks Jack and setter.
Somehow managed to get the entire right side done without managing anything left of INTENTLY, only managing to finish with the help of the Reveal button for what turned out to be BEDSPRING and BAT AROUND (though since I’d never heard that last expression or BAT for speed, didn’t feel too bad afterwards). COD DENTAL ASSISTANT, loved the long hidden answer. Thanks, Jack and setter.
40:49. similar experience to Jack – slowed down dramatically at the end. BAT AROUND and TOSS my LOIs. Great puzzle with lots to chew over. thanks!
I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I had to drop it just after I started to answer some stuff at work, so it probably took me about half an hour. i didn’t have much at the first pass but they all went in steadily. My LOI was HYBRID, and had me cursing, yet again, that I took ages to twig CROSS = HYBRID (liger, tigon, mule etc).
For the record, TAB for SPEED (in drug parlance) makes absolutely no sense because speed doesn’t come in that form, it only ever comes in powder form. Er, so I’m told by my, er, friend… So glad to see that wasn’t the explanation (I didn’t know BAT for SPEED but could see it had to be that).
Been doing the quick cryptic regularly for a while, and starting to have a look at the 15×15 puzzles. Always find it interesting finding out new words and abbreviations. Managing to solve about a third of the clues at the moment, but hoping to increase this. Thank you for the blog 😁
Not only does ‘bat’ = ‘speed’ as a noun but as a verb, as in the phrase ‘bat along’, so I can’t see any problem with it. I toyed with ‘less’ instead of ‘toss’, on the grounds that ‘less than’ = ‘shy of’ and also ‘shirt’ on the grounds that ‘sketch’ = ‘sketchy’ (but that’s closer in meaning to ‘dodgy’ than ‘shit’). I saw the error of my ways and changed the answers to the much better TOSS and SKIRT for a 32 minute finish. NHO ‘dabber’ (I was looking for ‘sharpie’) but I’m surprised by the apparent obscurity of BENIDORM.
An unprecedented 6 unparsed answers for this, though all complete from definitions. One or two I should have been able to work out, but Mr Ego and Jackkt supplied the explanations between them. Dabber was NHO, and I’ve no intention of taking up Bingo, so filed away for crossword reference. Fortunately, I got BRADAWL before 13d, or BAT might have been a problem, though I’ve heard the phrase ‘batting around ideas’. Generally found this rather hard work.
I must say I enjoyed this one a great deal. I finished in 46.14 with all correct, and fully parsed, which reading some of the comments seems to have been somewhat of an achievement. I was quite happy with BAT for speed without a second thought. My only problems along the way were initially spelling BENIDORM with a central E before parsing came to my rescue, and somehow convincing myself that I’d heard of a cocktail called a GREEN NAIL. I needed the cunningly and brilliantly concealed DENTAL ASSISTANT to show me I had to rethink. For my LOI, PALATIAL took me a while to parse, but I wasn’t confident enough to stop the clock until I had successfully parsed it. I’m now off to celebrate my successful completion with a Green Nail!
30:37 so just over my half hour target
LOI was BRADAWLS preceded by the BAT part of BAT AROUND.
Thanks setter and blogger
Steve
I thought this was a good challenge. Initially found it hard to get going but managed most of it apart from HYBRID and had to biff GIBBON as couldn’t parse it. Glad I spotted the hidden 2d early on which provided a lot of useful letters!
Thanks again to you all.
I went to Benidorm when I was working in Madrid in the 80s, and remember thinking that despite its reputation (chips, beer and tabloids) it had a fine beach. Made heavy weather of top left, with BAT AROUND LOI. Never heard of BAT = SPEED. 23’27”