Author: branch

I zipped through this: top left, bottom right, bottom left, home. Hardy a pause but several smiles. LOI was 15ac, only because of my lack of geographic knowledge. I enjoyed 16dn and the inheritance at 4dn.

… they first quote myths? Certainly I was comprehensively beaten by 18dn! The rest was quite satisfyingly accessible.

Every clue was gettable, though some took effort to bring to mind. Those who were on their game should be reporting fast times.

Looking at the answers gave me that sense of genteel nostalgia that perhaps was once the trademark of the Times crossword. The Roman general stretched my memory a little. Otherwise, I thought this was middle of the range for a Saturday. The top left took me longest.

The fifth of November used to see celebration of Guy Fawkes day with firecrackers in Australia, but fire danger in hot and often dry weather put an end to that. So just a regular Saturday. The puzzle had some answers at the outer reaches of my vocabulary, gettable from wordplay.

I was amused by 24ac – nice images of kissing frogs. That answer also unlocked the last few clues at the bottom of the grid, so all the more welcome!

My eye quickly fell on 10ac. Isn’t “jelly” too obvious? Of course it is! Actually my FOI was 24dn. The bottom half was much easier than the top, and my last four in were 6dn, 7dn and 1ac/3dn where a crossing letter needed repair to finish things off. Overall, quite challenging, I felt, but good fun.

I enjoyed the hints of 20th century power plays, although we may sink into a possible replay in the 21st century.

René Descartes was a great philosopher, mathematician and scientist, but he appears in this crossword only because he was French, as far as I can tell! C’est la vie.

There were a few unknowns here, including the sonnet and the stew, but all of them solvable.