QC 3083 by Jalna

This would be sweet as in dessert.

This could be Level as in a computer game.

I kept trying to make this work with the wrong T, this led to my thinking up alternatives

• Assessment time estimated (T +EST)
• Assessment of note with saint (TE +ST)
• Assessment of Hardy girl short on time (TES + T)

For the kids, phones used to have two elements, a hand set which was attached by cable and a box bit with an element called the cradle. When you were finished you placed it in this cradle, and this was called hanging-up. Next week, we’ll learn about “dialling”.

And of course the other meaning is “an emotional or psychological problem”, its much newer than the other one, and dates from the early days of psychiatry, when they still used couches.

Stet, is a typesetting instruction meaning “leave this alone”, or “don’t remove the changes”. The 12 indicates the answer to the clue at 12 across, “TEST” and the “changes” is an anagram indicator. Hence (TEST)* = STET.

Maybe this one escaped from the 15×15.

Not sure why we need a ? here, its a good clue, no whimsy needed.

Tricky as “altered” is usually the anagrind, and here it is the anagrist.

I tried POINT at first, it has many meanings, but I don’t think wine is one of them.

It’s not so easy to get these in the right order. I guess “wear” can be used as a “precedes” indicator, but that doesn’t seem very natural.

This is gives two alternatives depending on which of the O’s you assign the Love and Ring to. Its either LO on O; or L on O, then O.

The use of Ristorante is supposed to cue up the fact that this is an Italian dish, but these “clues” often distract more than help.

Say=express. Although it could be a triple definition, as express=fast (as in Express Checkout), and express is also a train (“Take the 10:00 Express from Euston”).

I’m always excited to see a new long anagram, where they are both single long words and most of the letters move about. Good one, Jalna.

Edmund SPENSER (English Poet 1552 -1599)  has appeared in these puzzles before. Wrote The Faerie Queen, then learnt to spell.

But seriously SER for series? I had to check, and found The ISO 4 international standard for abbreviating scientific journal titles, where “Series” does indeed become “Ser.”

That placement of the apostrophe means that one sheriff has multiple posses available. /pedantry

Total as in the verb, usually used in reference to a wrecked vehicle by an insurance company, short for “Total loss”