Author: william_j_s

I’m glad for another on the gentler side for Friday, as I’m fighting a cold and not in the mood for thinking too hard. Lots of witty clues, but I really liked 17ac.

Nothing too scary in here, with the long across answers holding out satisfyingly until the end. The stone monument was a half-guess for me; the tea and glasses I know only from this blog.

A curate’s egg in terms of difficulty, with more hard than not, but that in the end I was happy to nibble on, probably only because I managed to finish with no errors.

After 1ac went straight in, I should have noticed that the setter was toying with me.

I would guess that anybody getting the 1s, 4ac, and 23dn immediately, then relying on checkers to speed things along as I did, will have found this on the gentler side.

An early SNITCH rating of 93.

Good fun.

A clever and enjoyable puzzle – and chewy enough.

I’ll make a pre-SNITCH guess of about 130, or pretty hard.

I found this a slog – not really awake enough to appreciate the artful clueing.