Author: Merlin

Nice Puzzle from Mara, I messed up a few of the clues, leading to a longer than usual time, close to 15 mins.

Very slow start, took an age before the FOI, things moved on pretty quick for me then. 10:23.

14:23 for me, which included a couple of clues where I was searching for a non-existent anagram.

As Columbus said when he raised the telescope to his blind eye, “I See no Nina”.  

Back on the hard ones again, or I wasn’t on the wavelength and was barking up the wrong tree several times.

For me it was Chestnuts 3 NHOs 2, after Extra Time.

Four thirteen letter words underpin the grid, get these quickly and you are well on your way, I didn’t, so 12:25.

My Solving time (12:46) was much faster than the post-solve unpacking for this blog.

Some great surfaces here, I don’t usually read surfaces much, as I am too busy trying to decrypt them. 1A for example is a perfectly natural English phrase.

Some obscurities held me up here, I should imagine a few solvers mouthing a word of prayer before pressing submit.