A tricky one from Asp, I thought, with some unknown vocabulary and lots of beautifully deceptive clues. I was pushed just into the SCC, finishing in 20:01. If I hadn’t made and corrected a typo while entering my last answer, I would have been just the other side of 20 minutes. As Asp tends to be one of the harder setters, I’m happy with that.
My first one in was NESS, last one BERATING, COD to UNCOMMON, where I was convinced that “lack of sophistication” was the definition until I saw UN at the top of UNSEALS and thought, “hold on, that’s an article in French. Ohhhh…”.
On edit: Quadrophenia, in the very first comment below, points out that there is quite a clever theme to this puzzle. If you spotted it in time for it to help with your solve, you have my permission to go to Smug Factor 10.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (THIS)*.
| Across | |
| 1 | Odd article in Le Monde showing lack of sophistication (8) |
| UNCOMMON – UN (‘A’ in French, so an ‘article in Le Monde’), COMMON (lack of sophistication). | |
| 5 | Prominent piece of land held by businessman (4) |
| NESS – Hidden in [held by] ‘Ness’ is a synonym for headland, or promontory. |
|
| 8 | Line is removed from shocking opening (8) |
| STARTING – STARTLING (shocking), minus L for Line. | |
| 9 | Podcaster’s way of running portal (4) |
| GATE – Homonym of ‘gait’ (way of running).
Podcasts used to be audio only, hence the use of ‘podcaster’ to signal a homonym clue, but I understand that the kids these days are watching them too. |
|
| 11 | Following source of financial news during tumultuous era (5) |
| AFTER – FT (abbreviation for Financial Times, the British newspaper focused on, well, finance), inside (ERA)*. | |
| 12 | However, idiot finally had an idea (7) |
| THOUGHT – THOUGH (however) + last letter of As in, “Shall we go to the pub?” “Now, there’s a thought”. |
|
| 13 | Salt spring? (6) |
| SEASON – Double definition, the first being a verb. | |
| 15 | Everyone in Slough yielded to temptation (6) |
| FALLEN – ALL (everyone) in FEN (slough).
Pronounced as “slew”, a slough is an inlet filled with water, which I guess makes it a close relative of a fen. I didn’t know this word until I moved to California, where I live relatively close to Elkhorn Slough. My dictionary marks it as “N Amer”, so this may be tricky for many. |
|
| 18 | Fool regularly ignored trendy set (7) |
| CLOTTED – CLOT (fool), plus every other letter of T That’s ‘set’ as an adjective, as in jelly. Most often seen in ‘clotted cream’. |
|
| 19 | Best part of dairy product (5) |
| CREAM – Another double definition. | |
| 21 | Control time in office for auditor (4) |
| REIN – sounds like [for auditor] ‘reign’ (time in office). | |
| 22 | Smashed TV set screening men’s formal attire (8) |
| VESTMENT – (TV SET)* containing [screening] MEN.
The apostrophe in the clue is not a possessive here, but a contraction of “is”. |
|
| 23 | First person guided around shop (4) |
| DELI – I (first person) LED (guided), reversed [around]. | |
| 24 | Reprimanding despicable person’s boring existence (8) |
| BERATING – RAT (despicable person) entering [boring] BEING (existence). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Releases elite US troops to support peacekeeping force (7) |
| UNSEALS – SEALS (elite US troops) below [to support, for a down clue] UN (United Nations, peacekeeping force).
As in classified records that reach their “keep secret until” date. |
|
| 2 | Make a detailed plan of church painting and sculpture? (5) |
| CHART – CH for church + ART (painting and sculpture).
The question mark is an indication that the wordplay for ART is a definition by example. |
|
| 3 | One unable to shut up car opening (10) |
| MOTORMOUTH – MOTOR (car) MOUTH (opening, as a river). | |
| 4 | Highly decorated knight coming in to deliver speech (6) |
| ORNATE – N (knight, from chess notation), inside [coming in] ORATE [to deliver speech].
One of the few clues I got on first sight. Pretty sure we’ve seen exactly this construction before. |
|
| 6 | English vicar’s first financial backer for any of the Gospels (7) |
| EVANGEL -E for English, V [V I had never seen this word before, but I backformed the possibility of its existence from ‘evangelist’ and ‘evangelical’. Checking my dictionary, one of the definitions is “any one of the four Gospels”, so the definition couldn’t be more accurate, and the wordplay was pretty clear. |
|
| 7 | Exhausted writer found in street (5) |
| SPENT – PEN (writer) inside [found in] ST (street). | |
| 10 | Roaming on coast via Canadian province (4,6) |
| NOVA SCOTIA – (ON COAST VIA)*
Turns out that Nova Scotia is the sixth Canadian province that comes to my mind when I try to list them. |
|
| 14 | Leader of American party unconcerned about others (7) |
| ASOCIAL – A [leader of A Another word I didn’t know, but was willing to believe in its existence. |
|
| 16 | How to identify someone 9 staff upset (7) |
| NAMETAG – GATE (the answer to clue number 9) + MAN (staff), reversed [upset].
For once, I was happy about cross-referencing clues, because I had solved 9 and actually thought to try the answer here. And it worked! I believe the convention is that numbers when written with digits (‘9’) can (but don’t have to) refer to other clues, but numbers written out (‘nine’) do not. |
|
| 17 | Stick plug in this place (6) |
| ADHERE – AD (plug) HERE (in this place). | |
| 18 | Crude bombs made better (5) |
| CURED – (CRUDE)* | |
| 20 | Resin obtained from bio-fuel emissions (5) |
| ELEMI – hidden in [obtained from] No, me neither. From my Shorter OED: “any of various oleoresins obtained from tropical trees of the family Burseraceae and used in varnishes and ointments;” So now we know. |
|
Liked this with UNCOMMONNESS, STARTING GATE, AFTERTHOUGHT, CLOTTED CREAM, REINVESTMENT, DELIBERATING. Very neat.
Thanks D and setter.
Oh my, I never even noticed!
Ha! I had to smile after you wrote ‘most often seen in clotted cream’.
Oh, wow! Well spotted and ..how clever is the ASP?!
Can you explain this please. I can’t see the connection.
The answer to 1a and 5a can be combined to form a whole word or phrase, in this case ‘uncommonness’. There are five more in the puzzle.
A bit outside the usual QC fare I think, Asp must have let their ego get the best of them to finish the Nina at the cost of an accessible puzzle. Too many cheap tricks and obscurities for me.
Which tricks were cheap?
I agree, wholeheartedly, with David. This is supposed to be a Quick Cryptic not a vanity project from a setter who has never set an actual QC for me. I finished this in around half a hour (close to the time it took me to complete the 15×15 on Monday). The satisfaction from solving the cleverer clues was lost in the frustration. The Nina was the last straw. Who cares?
The Crossword Editor ought to ask him/her to set 15×15 puzzles.
Thanks D.
I may be wrong but I believe Asp is the pseudonym of Jason Crampton aka the crossword editor
Thanks. I didn’t know that. I think he should have a serious chat with himself about the level of difficulty of supposed ‘Quick’ Cryptic puzzles.
A high proportion of today’s posters seem to agree so he might listen to them.
Unlikely, as this discussion happens every time he sets. My heart sank when I saw it was an Asp today.
Mine too! Did the half a dozen that came relatively easily and gave up . . . coming here to do a little learning.
Silly question perhaps, but how do people know who the setter is for each crossword? Are you guys doing them online and the setter is mentioned there? I always do them in the paper itself and I’ve never seen the setter named.
Since you have posted in a Quick Cryptic discussion I assume that’s the puzzle you’re referring to. In the newspaper the setter’s name is just above the grid in a bar with a blue background. If you’re referring to the 15×15 puzzle, the setter remains anonymous.
Ah, yes, I meant the 15×15. Just happened to be browsing these answers. Thanks, though!
Perhaps you and the others who only ever turn up to pick holes and whine (we all know who they are) should find another hobby?
There is nothing wrong with not liking a puzzle, nor with saying so here. When 90%+ of your comments are negative, however, it starts to… shall we say paint a picture of a certain type of person. You might wish to reflect upon whether the person in that picture is a pleasant one.
I agree, and its selfish to loudly insist that the only legitimate QCs are the easy ones. Some of us enjoy the trickier ones as we try and get better at this
I don’t know who you are replying to, MacG but neither David nor I (nor the many others below) ‘only ever turn up to pick holes and whine’. I have been adding my two penn’orth to this blog since QC no. 1 and David is a regular, constructive, contributor.
I don’t think I have read one of your contributions before. Whilst I don’t know of any posters whose contributions are ‘90% negative’, I do agree with you that ‘There is nothing wrong with not liking a puzzle, nor with saying so here.’ However, I think that the rest of your last paragraph is as regrettable as your opening paragraph.
Hear, hear, well spoke Blighter.
Agree, 100%, with all of your words.
Thanks, both. Much appreciated.
Gentlemen, you are reminded that courteous language is required in this blog. I suggest that it would be easy to express your opinion of the puzzle without reflecting on your fellow solvers. I am not going to delete this exchange, but please do not do this in the future.
7:45
ODE sv slough ([slaU]) has ‘swamp’. And Slough is a town in England, subject of a poem by Betjeman: Come friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!
ELEMI is a NYT chestnut: seeing ‘resin’, I immediately biffed it. Biffed NOVA SCOTIA from the enumeration. Didn’t notice the Nina, but then I seldom do. (I don’t look for them in cryptics.)
19:34
On bullet train from Hiroshima back to Tokyo. I thought parts of this were hard whilst in flight but think it’s just a bad day (not) at the office for me. Took ages to think of SEALS as an elite US force – expect those across the pond found that one easier; SEASON also took far longer, when I had SAILOR clogging up the thought process. CLOTTED and ASOCIAL also took ages.
Thanks D and Asp
Gosh, a bullet train. That’s an exciting place for puzzle solving.
It sounds fancier than it is and though it can travel at 320km/h, it really didn’t do anything for my speed of solving this puzzle which was inversely proportional to the train’s speed 😉
I look forward to the introduction of a full maglev (500km/h) service in Japan in 2047 – I expect my times to drop even further…
I got all of the right side and pretty much none on the left side (besides motor mouth) and I thought it was going to be an Izetti because of the gospel reference.
The cross reference helped me solve both clues today.
Wow, couldn’t get a foothold. Solved eight clues and hit the buffers and had to abandon. Now to make very extensive use of your blog Doofers!
20 minutes, here, so I’d agree this was a toughie but there was nothing obscure or unfair for a QC, just a puzzle towards the top of the range.
Could somebody explain the Nina at some point please?
All pair of across answers form a phrase or single word (except SEASON FALLEN, which rather threw me, as I’d spotted the trick by the time I came to my LOI SEASON!).
23 minutes. Asp baring his fangs, to me anyway. A well-deserved appearance at the SCC today. Just couldn’t see STARTING and my LOI SEALS, until the very end. Spotted the linked across word clues which unfortunately didn’t help.
Thanks to Asp and Doofers
Just under 30 and pretty happy with that. Yes, harder than most and NHO Slough>FEN, resin >ELEMI.
We felt tricky but fair. A number of PDMs followed by smiles.
Took longer than we should have to arrive at DELI and started an alphabet trawl to complete SEASON. Blind to the obvious.
Thank you ASP and thank you Doofenshmirtz – your blog and clarification much appreciated.
Struggled to a DNF in about 20, ASOCIAL remaining elusive. Some tough but fair clues here, thanks Asp and the Doof.
A rare DNF at 30 minutes and with time running short we revealed asocial which then made rein obvious.
Many thanks Doofers for the parsing.definition of a few!
Thanks Asp
Tough in places but everything was fairly clued.
I spotted the nina on my proof read with a sigh as my last two in would have been a lot less troublesome if I’d seen it a couple of minutes earlier.
Started with NESS and finished with CLOTTED and STARTING in 10.07, which I’m fairly happy with considering some of the early comments. COD to GATE.
Thanks to Doofers and Asp
10.15 with a typo
No problems till I got to the SEASON/ASOCIAL crosser. The former took longer than it should but it was the latter that did for me. Just couldn’t see it for ages. And then I mistyped it. 🤷♂️
ELEMI was the first “crossword” word I learned, surprised that it seemed to raise no particular comment in the blog of the time, only learning later that there are only so many words that fit E_E_I
Anyway, I liked this puzzle so thanks Asp and Doofers.
21:32, so quite a struggle today. FOI NESS. LOI ASOCIAL.
At 15ac I thought of the “slough of despond” to get FEN. It’s a fictional bog from The Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan, but I didn’t know that until I looked it up just now. I would certainly pronounce it like the town.
I did not spot the Nina until CLOTTED CREAM, too late to be any help; it may even have slowed me down, as I needed to adjust the pronunciation to make sense of REIN/VESTMENT.
Greatly enjoyed. Thank you Asp and Doofers
Struggled with the left hand side and resorted to the blog after 30 minutes for the last five answers….
But impressed with most of the clues and the theme. Difficult though.
Thanks all
John
I’ve recently been trying to do the easier 15s and this had a similar flavour. Like Plett I only spotted the pairing on my proofread (which I did with care, having blown a fast time on the Concise today with a typo 🥴). A couple of words that definitely made one think “You wot?” but very clearly clued.
The two toughies for me were SEASON (where I really wanted “sailor” to work) and LOI ASOCIAL. COD SPENT, what a great surface.
Limped over the line in 10:05 for a Hard Yakka Day. Many thanks to Asp for the challenge and Doofers for the blog.
Some bits to enjoy but far too tricky for a quicky! Is anybody editing these and asking questions about their suitability? The setter is out of touch with us as he or she is with podcasts!
DNF, failing on SEASON – mental blank thinking of salt as a seasoning. And that after I had actually for once spotted the NINA – a rare thing indeed, and rather unfortunate that “season fallen” is the only pair of across clues which doesn’t really make anything useful. I feel let down!
And all that after I was feeling quite pleased at battling through what I thought was a pretty tough puzzle to that point. NHO EVANGEL, or ELEMI, but if others say it is a staple of Crosswordland I’ll store it away, or Fen as a synonym of slough, but all three gettable from the wordplay. And is VESTMENT always formal clothes?
Many thanks Doofers for the blog.
13:36, including two minutes spent on my LOI, ASOCIAL. I was convinced I was looking for a word beginning ADO…
Like others, I wasted time trying to parse SAILOR before eventually spotting SEASON. ELEMI has been encountered in other crosswords, but never in real life.
Thanks Doofers and Asp
Things I really hate :
1. Cross-referred clues
2. Puzzles that are a setter’s vanity project
3. A tough QC on the same day as a Championship 15×15
And yes, I am grouchy today.
FOI NESS
LOI BERATING
COD SPENT (a proper QC clue)
ANTI COD NAMETAG
TIME 7:36
I can see the steam rising from here! I think I’ll go get another coffee before tackling the 15×15!
It’s not bad, I had a completion over there, unlike the QC today.
Yes, I finished in just under 20 minutes, so quite approachable!
Yes, much more enjoyable (easier?) than last Wednesday’s!
Dnf…
My completion streak had to end at some point and this puzzle brought it to a shuddering halt. 20dn “Elemi” aside, none of the answers were too obscure, but the clueing was too clever for me and I had too many empty spaces to make a reasonable go of it.
FOI – 1dn “Unseals”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 9ac “Gate”
Thanks as usual!
DNF. Stared for ages at ASOCIAL, but threw in the towel.
Pi ❤️
I flew through the RHS but found the LHS extremely tough. Finally giving up on ASOCIAL (Convinced it went ADO_I_L)
and For the life of me I couldn’t see UNSEALS X STARTING which is really poor
Tough with a lot of traps for the unwary leading to several PDMs. NHO ELEMI but easy to work out. Thanks Asp for a satisfying puzzle and Doofers for great blog.
My favourite QC setter, even if the puzzles do take a little longer.
32:42 (very slow ), needing help to finish this very challenging puzzle. Several unpaused, ELEMI NHO – biffed. More 15×15 standard than QC, or Asp being a bit too clever.
From UNSEALS to ASCOCIAL and SEASON in 7:48. Clever theme which of course I didn’t notice until it was pointed out! Thanks Asp and Doofers.
I enjoyed this. Tough, possibly not “quick” but very fairly clued.
I don’t understand the problem people have with the Nina. If you see it, then the Nina itself is an additional clue. It adds to the enjoyment, and is certainly more than a “vanity project“. The asp did not use obscurity, just tricky clueing.
DNF at 20 mins. NW corner was my downfall, with both of the UN clues unsolved. Both parsed correctly, but could not come up with SEAL or COMMON. Also missed the chestnutty STARTLING, and the only talkative adjective which was also a car that I could think of was ROVERMOUTH.
I thought the ELEMI were those lethargic dudes in The Time Machine.
They were the Eloi (ie Morlock-fodder).
I was quick with the seals part. Clever surface. Took a while to get to UN from peace keeping force. That’s one to remember. I only got to uncommon via the crossers and assuming the UN … what’s the abriviation for parsed after guessed? 🙂
I don’t think there is one. It’s just bifd and post-parsed.
DNF
Beaten by ASOCIAL. Couldn’t see past DO for party and couldn’t find a word to fit so threw in the towel after a tough 30 minutes. Also struggled with GATE, UNSEALS and REIN. NHO ELEMI either.
Ditto re DO! Looking at the comments above we were not the only ones.
I just took elemi from the crossers (the two Es) and the hidden. Does that count as a parse because it certainly wasn’t a Bifd.
DNF disaster. I would be in the Slough of Despond if everyone else had found it easy. Slough/bog rhymes with cow in British English, as someone has probably said.
Thanks, Doofers. Blog much needed.
They hadn’t until now, so thanks. I was a bit worried, but it isn’t a word I would use so it doesn’t matter. I had always assumed the town Slough was named after a bog.
I’m chuffed that I got 19 in about 30 minutes given the comments above.
I missed seven out of the twelve nina clues.
Podcaster as a homophone indicator?
I liked that! It’s original, but works as well as any other.
After seven mins I had only five to do and was thinking this was another well-pitched QC from ASP. Unfortunately it then took me to 24mins to get STARTING, UNCOMMON, MOTORMOUTH, ASOCIAL and BERATING. Only second visit to the SCC this month.
With hindsight, it doesn’t seem too bad. Just that synonyms were hard to think of, and the clues didn’t give a lot of help to reach them. The only “non-QC” criticism I have is “article in Le Monde” but I’ve seen similar in biggies often enough to know it now. NHO EVANGEL, fen=slough, ELEMI but each gettable.
Tough as others have said, but I’d rather have a slow grind than one where most goes in quickly and then you are left frustrated by one or two really obscure offerings. Always nice to learn something along the way too, as with EVANGEL and ELEMI. Those were far from my last ones in though, and I don’t mind new vocabulary if it is generously clued. My last two in, CURED and REIN, were ones that I thought I should have seen a lot quicker, so I don’t think this was an unfair QC. Time was 36:47. Thanks Asp and Doofers.
Thanks to Asp and Doofenschmirtz.
Cor, hard.
8a LOI Starting.
9a Gate. I never thought of podcasters being audio only, they do tend to be pictorial these days.
15a Fallen, took a while for fen=slough to occur to me.
22a Vestment, fooled by having to drop the ‘s off men’s.
1d Unseals, DOH the seals were a long time coming. I had thought of marines but forgot about the Seals. And we used to have a program about Seals imported from the States.
6d NHO Evangel, tricky for a QC I would say.
20d Elemi HHO but only from crosswords so another tricky one.
Missed the Nina, but it is impressive.
Normally I stop at 30 minutes even if incomplete but I only had 3 to go so I carried on. I eventually finished in 34 minutes with everything parsed except BERATING. NHO EVANGEL or ELEMI but both were generously clued, so no complaints there.
FOI – 11ac AFTER
LOI – 14dn ASOCIAL
COD – 9ac GATE
WOD – MOTORMOUTH
Thanks to Asp and Doofers.
Failed on ASOCIAL! Couldn’t move on from thinking party = do.
A toughie. I got about 60% done so was reasonable pleased as it was clearly a tough puzzle.
Not sure insults being thrown around is warranted as this is supposed to be a friendly blog where there might be the occasional difference of opinion.
A slow start, but then things improved to the point where a sub-20 seemed just about possible. Starting then eased me into the SCC, but Asocial was the real killer, leading to a DNF after 25mins. I was convinced it would start Ado- and consequently gave up rather too soon. Invariant
I’ve met a few setters, and set a few puzzles myself as an amateur. Sometimes they try to set trickier puzzles or ones with a NINA or theme, just for variety. It’s got nothing to do with ego or vanity as implied above. If you don’t like a puzzle fair enough, but I can’t see why people feel the need to express their frustration by making a personal attack on someone whom they probably know nothing about.
Re the NINA although SEASON FALLEN isn’t a phrase, it is autumn at the moment, or fall over the pond.
I found most of this fairly easy – CRUDE becoming CURED is as simple a beginner’s clue as you can get. A couple were trickier for sure – I needed a wordfiller to complete UNSEALS and ASOCIAL. I am far from an expert solver, rarely completing the main puzzle without aids, but my target is 15 mins for the QC, and finished in about 12 with that bit of help.
As far as I’m concerned ELEMI was a classic example of an unknown word being clued with exemplary fairness.
11.04 Pleased with that! EVANGEL and ELEMI were new, I didn’t know a slough was a fen, GATE was a biff bolstered by NAMETAG and NESS took an alphabet trawl at the end. I didn’t see the theme. Thanks Doofers and Asp.
DNF
24 mins of challenging solves to then stare blindly at CLOTTED and ASOCIAL – both unsolved.
GATE went in unparsed, and even with Doofer’s explanation I still don’t understand the specific relevance to a podcaster.
I’ve only ever solved one 15×15 which by definition must have been easier than this, so not going to argue with anyone questioning whether this belonged in QC land.
However, I enjoyed the challenge and education of a lot of the clues. So, for that I welcome it into QC land, but would respectfully ask it only visits once a fortnight?
FOI: AFTER
LOI: DNF
COD: ADHERE
Thanks to Asp and Doofers
Edit: Re-read Doofer’s explanation re GATE, but podcaster is too obscure a homonym indicator for me. One to store in the old grey matter! 🙂
I hope this doesn’t come off as patronizing, but good on you for ‘losing gracefully’. Certain other commenters could learn from this. They won’t, of course.
The podcaster thing just means the word is spoken, not written, so “GAIT” = GATE
Thanks Jerry – get that now.
Just a bit of an obscure indicator of that as I’ve never listened to a podcast and, as Doofer’s pointed out, I have seen them on TV.
So, it’ll be another one I need to try and commit to memory.
Thanks again for your help.
It may seem unfair but I’m relieved to see that others found it tough! We had all but the SW corner (excepting DELI which we’d also entered) done in 10 1/2 minutes but then found ourselves contemplating a DNF. I can’t believe that, with the clue of ‘made better’ it took us so long to see CURED as an anagram of CRUDE! Finally recognising that was the fillip we needed to persevere, eventually finishing with ASOCIAL in 17:44. Needless to say we didn’t see the Nina – never do. Thank you, Doofers and Asp – for a rather tough but ultimately manageable puzzle.
Beaten by ASOCIAL but throughly enjoyed. Some new words to remember for another time: EVANGEL, slough, ELEMI, plus soc for party. Unbelievably slow to see SEASON, otherwise a leisurely crawl from NESS to the unsolved ASOCIAL. Many thanks for the blog. Thanks Asp. Lovely QC to get the brain working.
Tough. Took me so far into the SCC that I was in danger of exiting through the rear door. Finally beaten by ASOCIAL. Hey ho.
Edited, after reading the previous comments, to say that I really don’t mind being tested from time to time. If I’m not pushed occasionally how will I ever improve? As long as it doesn’t happen too often!
A total nightmare! Yet another non-QC from Asp who, as Crossword Editor, really should know better by now. 60 minutes of extremely hard graft. Only 19 (of 26) clues solved, and some of those were heavily question-marked on my paper copy.
Shortly before giving up, whilst desperately alphabet trawling ___A_I_G (24a), I found ‘uncaring’. And, IMO, that word perfectly describes Asp’s approach to setting his (so-called) QCs. Goodbye, Asp! I won’t be attempting any more of your offerings.
Many thanks to Doofers for the blog.
I have no pretensions as a cruciverbalist. If I can do the Quick Cryptic easily, I feel happy as I think I must be improving. If I struggle, either DNF or just take ages, I feel happy as I’m bound to have learned something. I never worry about the time taken. Try this approach. Enjoyment guaranteed.
I certainly agree about the learning, but the time for me is a measure of progress and, as I have an aspiration to solve the odd 15×15, I can’t help monitoring it.
I disagree about you not being a cruciverbalist:
“a person who enjoys or is skilled at solving crosswords”
– you clearly enjoy them! 😉
Similar, although I seem to finish more often now – after as many years as the QC has been going, I think! … (I mean similar to Bativy)
DNF. Hopeless SW corner. Thought 14d had to begin with ADO and kept thinking ALDI or LIDL for 23a. Never heard of EVANGEL or ELEMI but squeezed them from the clueing.
19:53, but not really cos I needed external assistance to get ASOCIAL, after which LOI CLOTTED finally fell into place.
Thank you for the blog!
Solved a few clues, but it is way above our level.