Today marks a milestone in my days at Times for The Times as this is my 1000th blog. My first 15×15 blog was published on 23rd November 2007 and in 2014 I expanded into Quick Cryptics. More recently I added Jumbos and I also covered a handful of Sunday Times and ‘Special’ puzzles along the way.
Time taken today: 39 minutes. I found this quite easy but missed my half-hour target by some distance.
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. “Aural wordplay” is in quotation marks. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
| 1 | Project I stuck to furiously (5,3) |
| STICK OUT | |
| Anagram [furiously] of I STUCK TO | |
| 6 | Darn discomfort caused by exercise? (6) |
| STITCH | |
| Two meanings | |
| 9 | Method initially introduced to get free ticket (4) |
| COMP | |
| M{ethod} [initially] contained by [introduced to] COP (get). Collins has this example of cop meaning get: ‘You’ll cop a clout if you do that’. ‘Comp’, short for complimentary, is slang for something that’s provided free of charge. | |
| 10 | Husband stupidly cheating claims love is intense (4-6) |
| HIGH-OCTANE | |
| H (husband), anagram [stupidly] of CHEATING contains [claims] 0 (love). Slang derived from the fuel rating. | |
| 11 | Training on F1 track, wearing extremely expensive footwear (10) |
| ESPADRILLE | |
| SPA (F1 track) + DRILL (training) contained by [wearing] E{xpensiv}E [extremely]. Google informs me that the Belgian Formula 1 Grand Prix is held on the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, but fortunately I didn’t need to know that to spot the answer. | |
| 13 | Cross threshold on the way back (4) |
| ROOD | |
| DOOR (threshold) reversed [on the way back]. Rood crosses are found in some Christian churches and represent the cross on which Jesus suffered. We also sometimes see ‘rood’ with reference to the screen that separates the chancel from the main part of a church. | |
| 14 | Continue leading cheers at home (8) |
| MAINTAIN | |
| MAIN (leading), TA (cheers), IN (at home) | |
| 16 | Encourage female not to lose face when interrupted by guys (6) |
| FOMENT | |
| F (female), {n}OT [to lose face] containing [interrupted by] MEN (guys). ‘Foment’ is often used in the context of encouraging discontent and even revolution. | |
| 18 | Starts to seem highly engrossed by Eastern faith (6) |
| SHINTO | |
| S{eem} + H{ighly} [starts to…], INTO (engrossed by) | |
| 20 | Welshman acquires rigging equipment from Scotland perhaps (8) |
| EUROPEAN | |
| EUAN (Welshman) contains [acquires] ROPE (rigging equipment) | |
| 22 | Small, standard box? (4) |
| SPAR | |
| S (small), PAR (standard) | |
| 24 | Travelling pretty far to take in a later, exclusive event (5-5) |
| AFTER-PARTY | |
| Anagram [travelling] of PRETTY FAR containing [to take in] A. A small party held after a larger event to which only a small group of guests is invited. I can’t say I’d ever heard this expression but the wordplay was clear. | |
| 26 | Apiarists haphazardly grabbing top of dying plant (10) |
| ASPIDISTRA | |
| Anagram [haphazardly] of APIARISTS containing [grabbing] D{ying} [top of…]. Gracie Fields sang about the biggest one in the world, and George Orwell wrote about keeping one flying. | |
| 28 | Definitely somewhat still able to win (2,2) |
| IN IT | |
| Hidden in [somewhat] {def}IN IT{ely} | |
| 29 | Prohibition all but ended? Correct! (4,2) |
| BANG ON | |
| BAN (prohibition), GON{e} [all but ended] | |
| 30 | Means of identifying bugs cracked by social media firm (4,4) |
| NAME TAGS | |
| NAGS (bugs – annoys) containing [cracked by] META (social media firm – formerly Facebook, Inc) | |
| Down |
|
| 2 | Basis of philosophy exists with every single PM (9) |
| TAOISEACH | |
| TAO (basis of philosophy), IS (exists), EACH (every single). The unspellable and unpronounceable office of Prime Minister of Ireland. And the Deputy’s title is the equally impossible ‘Tanaiste’ which turned up in the ST puzzle blogged by Guy on Sunday. No matter how hard I try I can’t remember these. | |
| 3 | Senior footballer better practise with no end of vigour (7) |
| CAPTAIN | |
| CAP (better), T{r}AIN (practise) [with no end of vigour] | |
| 4 | Different source that has given away millions (5) |
| OTHER | |
| {m}OTHER (source) [that has given away millions]. As in necessity being the mother of invention. | |
| 5 | Animal found in middle of mountains, say (3) |
| TEG | |
| {moun}T{ains} [middle], EG (say). A yearling sheep. | |
| 6 | Person finally sick of dancing with a partner? (6,3) |
| SPOKEN FOR | |
| Anagram [dancing] of PERSON {sic}K [finally] OF | |
| 7 | Temporary current running through place underground close to dam (7) |
| INTERIM | |
| I (current) contained by [running through} INTER (place underground – bury) + {da}M [close to…] | |
| 8 | Company taking over empty neighbourhood building in LA (5) |
| CONDO | |
| CO (company) containing [taking] O (over) + N{eighbourhoo}D [empty]. ‘In LA’ just indicates America. | |
| 12 | Liberal German certainly not upset to be featured in warrant (7) |
| LENIENT | |
| NEIN (German certainly not – no!) reversed [upset] contained by [to be featured in] LET (warrant – permit) | |
| 15 | Love helping to support a party (9) |
| ADORATION | |
| A, DO (party), RATION (helping) | |
| 17 | New person left out? It almost happens! (4,5) |
| NEAR THING | |
| N (new), EARTH{l}ING (person – usually in sci-fi) [left out] | |
| 19 | Manage to be upstanding and celebrate work in the NHS? (7) |
| NURSING | |
| RUN (manage) reversed [to be upstanding], SING (celebrate). Nursing is work in the NHS. | |
| 21 | Musician’s track mostly introduces a new one (7) |
| PIANIST | |
| PIST{e} (track) [mostly] contains [introduces] A + N (new) + I (one) | |
| 23 | At first, pet Alsatian regularly rejected carb-heavy food (5) |
| PASTA | |
| P{et} [at first], A{l}S{a}T{i}A{n} [regularly rejected] | |
| 25 | Many papers covering large area of study (5) |
| REALM | |
| REAM (many papers) containing [covering] L (large) | |
| 27 | Heavy weight cask picked up (3) |
| TON | |
| Aural wordplay [picked up] TON / “tun” (cask) | |
I just saw the blurb scrolling through the site, so have dropped in to say holy cow – A THOUSAND?
amazing commitment and effort
Also thanks for all of your informative comments Jack, on blogs that aren’t yours.
I heartily second Tina’s praise and gratitude- on to 2000!
Holy cow indeed! This blog has been a huge encouragement and source of enjoyment to me, and you are a huge part of it – a thousand thanks, and long may you continue to add to that total.
Hear hear. – a 1000.wow. Congratulations and thanks for your efforts and help over the years
Congratulations on the milestone, I do 26 blogs a year and that seems hard enough. I will pencil in year 2064 for my 1000th.
46:46 today, no pinks and no aids.
LOI the NHO TEG, which went in with fingers crossed. And spent way too long on the comparatively easy STITCH. I didn’t like COMP with its two pretty obscure slang words.
I thought IN IT was INNIT (definitely) with “somehow” as the homophone indicator.
The clue TAO IS EACH has now provided a handy mnemonic next time I need the spelling of the Irish premier. I only use it in crosswords though.
COD NAMETAGS good to see newer companies in clues instead of the old BL, ICI, LNER etc etc.
Found this pretty clever. POI SPOKEN FOR, LOI ESPADRILLE.
I knew TAOISEACH, unlike the deputy encountered Sunday.
Congratulations, Jack!
Congratulations, Jack! Thanks for the parsing.
Around 75 minutes without COMP which to me was impossible to get. Bottom half went in quickly but the top half slowed me to a crawl. Not helped in the STITCH clue by reading darn as dam.
Does anyone know how to print out the puzzle so “rn” looks different to “m”?
It seems we’re expected to tell the difference entirely from context. The clue for INTERIM didn’t make any sense with “…place underground close to darn.”
Problem is I read that as dam. The difficulty is in reading darn as different.
Huh? In the clue for INTERIM, it IS “d-a-m.”
The problem is that they are almost exactly the same. I even blew up the page with my phone camera lens and couldn’t see the difference.
A workround for this problem is to use the CTRL-F search function to look for DARN and DAM, and distinguish them in this way.
On the computer, sure. But I was working on paper.
First, I would like to congratulate our blogger, one of my most active and useful helpers – TftT really benefits from his constant presence on the site, as trolls and spammers attack while I am sleeping in my US time zone. While I started in 2009, I don’t have nearly as many posts, since I only started blogging Mephisto in 2020. So Jackkt is definitely our champion blogger!
So, the puzzle. I did not find this difficult, although I was a bit slow on obvious answers like stick out, which I couldn’t parse, and Shinto, which I couldn’t remember. On the other hand, I biffed espadrille and foment. I was left with T _ G, and I couldn’t think of any animal that fit. Then I used the cryptic, and remembered that crosswordland sheep!
Time: 22 minutes.
I don’t know if the crossword was deliberately timed, but the SPA (Belgian) grand-prix was yesterday (Sunday…it is still Monday where I am). Done in 27′ with nothing especially memorable now.
36m 28s
Many congratulations, Jack. It’s always a pleasure reading your blogs. I find that, more often than not, our solving times are very similar and my thoughts on some clues often match yours.
I don’t know if you like cricket or not, but, on this occasion you can raise your bat to the crowd in celebration of 1000 not out!
Meanwhile, regarding TAOISEACH, I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again; in one episode of one of my favourite sitcoms -‘Drop the Dead Donkey’, one of the two newsreaders, Sally, couldn’t get her head around the word taoiseach and finished by asking: “Why would the Irish PM open a tea shop?”
I second these sentiments- many thanks to the blogger for his endeavours. I wouldn’t be the solver I am today without his encouragement and blogs. Happy to complete this in around 20 minutes. Was glad Taoiseach was so helpfully clued.
Congratulations (and thanks) Jack for all of the blogs and comments.
Many congratulations jack, and profound thanks for your insights and comments over the years.
22:22
Had trouble seeing HIGH-OCTANE; indeed, took to writing down the anagrist, which I seldom do anymore. Biffed ESPADRILLE, ASPIDISTRA (glad the I was a checker; I’d probably have spelled it with an A), NAME TAGS. Didn’t care for ‘stuck’ in the clue with STICK in the solution. It took me a long time to drop EVAN and think of EUAN.
Congratulations, Jack, on a truly impressive record. A thousand blogs! and such blogs! Always a model of explanatory elegance. A thousand more, please!
His Realm a slaughter-house, his subjects slain,
His statutes cancell’d and his treasure spent
(Henry VI, part III)
25 mins pre-brekker. No crosses or MERs. I liked “not to lose face”=OT.
Ta setter and ta and congrats J.
Thank you Jack! I’ve enjoyed reading your blogs and comments for many years. Keep it up. Please.
Well done Jack, thank you for your hard work and dedication and meticulous blogs. 27.43 today, which means this was twice as hard as yesterday. J’s help required to explain the biffed ESPADRILLE, IN IT and TEG. I too lost time by seeing ‘dam’ at 6ac, and I’m confused about 20ac where ‘from Scotland’ = EUROPEAN. Wasn’t there some kind of vote or something? Never mind, an enjoyable and clever puzzle.
From Desolation Row (yet again):
Praise be to Nero’s Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody’s shouting “Which side are you on?”
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, they’re fighting in the CAPTAIN’s tower
While calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much about
Desolation Row
Scotland, now not even looking to exit the UK, voted remain. Even so, if not European, which continent would you prefer?
Oh I always thought the British Isles were separate from any continent. Do they still refer to the other side of the channel as ‘the continent’? I fully agree that geographically the UK looks like it is in Europe, it’s just that from this far-flung outpost of empire we hear that some people reject that notion entirely. Like there are people in Australia who say it’s not in Asia…
Ah yes “fog in channel, continent cut off”. My geography teacher deflated our sense of national importance by referring to GB as “a small, coal-bearing island off the mouth of the Rhine.
Perhaps I could remind you that the Eurovision Song Contest, that infallible guide to what is and us not Europe, still includes le Royaume Uni possibly only so that it has someone to vote null points to. But then it also includes Iceland, Israel….. and Australia. Bienvenu!
It’s not a question of preference but, returning to a favourite topic on here, ‘interchangeability’. Scots are European but Europeans aren’t defined by being from Scotland.
This isn’t anything to do with interchangeability – it’s a definition by example, as indicated by the “perhaps”.
Regardless of any vote, geographically the British Isles are in Europe. The odd bit of that clue is “Welshman” – Euan is a Scottish name, not a Welsh one (that would be Evan).
I (as a Welsh woman) had exactly the same thought.
Congratulations, Jack, one hell of an achievement. 33 minutes on this with LOI EUROPEAN. I wasn’t totally sure about COMP, but then I thought of copping a new engine as a lad in my trainspotting days. COD to TEG, a rare honour for a three-letter word. Decent puzzle. Thank you Jack and setter.
Congratulations Jack and thanks for all the work you put in.
This took me 39 mins too, oddly. Quite tricky in places with SPOKEN FOR, EUROPEAN, CAPTAIN & COMP (LOI) all holding out at the end.
I’m another who always has problems on my printed version with darn and dam. Ita apain.
I liked AFTERPARTY & NEAR THING.
Thanks Jack and setter.
21:16
As others, the bottom half went in quickly and I was slow getting TAOISEACH, ESPADRILLE, and LENIENT. Also in spite of being a proud Welshman I always struggle to remember my namesakes in crossword-land so EUROPEAN took longer than it should.
I enjoyed this one though and it was a pleasant challenge after yesterday’s mild offering.
Thanks for the blog and for each of the previous 999 Jack. An impressive achievement.
After yesterday’s rather sluggish performance, this was a far better 8:57. Only parsing mystery was ‘piste’.
Thanks setter, and thanks and congratulations, Jack.
About 11 minutes.
ASPIDISTRA was unknown but sounded likely, and the wordplay was very helpful for spelling TAOISEACH. Otherwise no real problems.
Thanks Jack, and congratulations!
FOI Stick out
LOI Teg
COD Espadrille
Tremendous effort, Jack – congratulations and thank you.
I seem to be going against the grain today having zoomed through this in record time. I got held up closing it off in the NW eventually plumping for comp in order to piece the spelling of Taoiseach together then building up the parts of espadrille. Solving on paper outside in the sunshine with a coffee seem to be the magic ingredients to this 18 minute solve.
7:22. No problems, no unknowns.
TAO IS EACH is exactly how I remember to spell the Irish PM.
Many thanks and congratulations jackkt on an amazing milestone.
I had pomp for 9a, but nevermind.
Congrats Jack, one of the most helpful/friendly members/bloggers for newbies.
A steady solve today, not as quick as yesterday but not too hard. Knew TEG from the “Our Yorkshire Farm” series on TV with Amanda the shepherdess..
Congratulations Jackkt, on a remarkable milestone! However I notice that TfTT thinks you have done 1026 posts now. Possibly not all of them counted as full blogs; but my records don’t quite tally with TfTT either!
Thanks, Jerry, and to all those who have kindly posted congratulations; your comments are much appreciated.
I have all my blogs saved and catalogued so I know the exact figure. 1026 as indicated by TfTT includes various announcements and 2 or 3 blogs compiled by others but posted by me on their behalf although I now forget the exact circumstances. What it doesn’t include however are 3 special Sunday Times bonus puzzles I blogged over Christmas 2016 which mysteriously were not transferred across from Live Journal to the new site. They are still available there but probably not worth the work involved in recovering them now.
Well done on the 1000th, having only joined the blog in the past few years I sometimes forget the history some of you guys have!
To the puzzle… STICK OUT was a poor clue I thought. I didn’t parse NEAR THING but it is clever. I quite enjoyed COMP!
However LOI EUROPEAN threw me. Firstly its a fairly strange and random (albeit correct) reference to someone from Scotland. Mainly, though, I believe EUAN is a Scottish, not Welsh, name (being Scots myself) and a quick Google seems to confirm that. So for me its a bit of a mess.
Thanks Jackkt and setter, look forward to the next 1000!
Wiktionary agrees with you (as do I) on Euan being Scottish. The clue would work fine if Welsh/Scot were swapped.
Good point. I think Evan is the Welsh version, both derivatives of John. Not to be confused with Ewan, which is the Scottish version of Owen and has a different origin altogether.
32:24
LENINENT and SPOKEN FOR took an age and I was another confused by Darn/ Dam
Enjoyed this though it took longer than it should have, Probably due to the heat -it’s 36c here in Poitiers. I intend to spend the rest of the day in lying on the sofa in a darkened room, reading, or flicking between the Olympics and re-runs of Foyles War on tv.
Thanks to the setter and congratulations Jack on a splendid run. Your blogs are always clear and helpful and your comments on clues well judged. Long may you continue.
Congratulations Jack on the milestone. So much good stuff.
30:40 for me today with one pink square. I went straight past COMP in my alphabet trawl and settled on POMP which is quite a stretch for the “ticket” but I was happy with POP for “get free”.
Good luck to Merlin with his mnemonic for the Taoiseach. Every time it appears I think yes! now I will know how to spell it. But I don’t
Many congratulations Jack on reaching this milestone, and also many thanks.
I managed today’s puzzle in 22:49. Started off quite fast, but (except for 1ac) the NE slowed me down with LOI COMP, and before that the Irish PM.
Thanks again to Jack, and the setter
PS and yes I did see darn as dam on my phone screen at first
15:15
Nearly a rare sub 15’ for me, but didn’t have LENIENT as the seconds ticked away. Horses for courses.
Well done Jack and thanks setter.
Nice puzzle. Didn’t like 1a stick/stuck, and 5d and 27d with T?G and T?N were a bit meh for me. Nearly plumped for TIG (cat) and homophone TON.
LOI 20a European.
COD 28a InIt after Jack (congrats there jack) showed me the hidden. DOH.
On my computer and when printed out, rn and m are completely indistinguishable. When The Times started using the current font there were complaints, and the then Editor said they would monitor the situation .. but nothing has ever been done despite a regular flow of complaints.
Everyone is full of congratulations and thanks for your wise and pleasant blogs and posts, and rightly so. I echo them all. You are well ahead of me (I’m only a few over 800): we started at around the same time and for many years I blogged the Independent crossword weekly (as John). Now I do The Everyman every four weeks and Azed every six, so I’ll never catch up.
31 minutes, having used aids for COMP since I was unsure of both cop and comp. An alphabet trawl produced nothing, so I reckoned that it was a word I didn’t know, which was true. Why is a captain specifically a football captain? There are many other sporting captains, and many other captains who are nothing to do with sport. And ESPADRILLE was entered because, although Spa as the FI track didn’t occur. Enjoyed the tea shop. Useful to know how to spell TAOISEACH: this had never occurred.
Many congratulations, Jack. What an achievement! I always enjoy reading your blogs and find your comments helpful and informative. Thank you for all your hard work and your commitment to the TftT community.
20.33 today, working through the haze of a bug of some kind which stymied crosswording for a couple of days.
I did wonder if we had another Down with the Kids grid, with COMP, (FB is now) META, and like Merlin not getting beyond IN(N)IT.
My grid is littered with barely understood answers, though my blurriness helped in that I could quite easily believe that EUAN was Welsh.
Every time I see the road sign “heavy plant crossing” I’m prompted into a rendition of the Gracie Fields song, so thanks for that reminder Jack, and 999 other entertaining and lucid blogs. I’ll try and catch up over the next 40 or so years!
26:09
Fast until about three quarters through but had to grind out the last half-dozen, in order SPOKEN FOR, FOMENT, EUROPEAN, LENIENT, COMP, TEG. I couldn’t see the full parsing for any of these final three, but lucky to know of COMP tickets and TEGs (was thinking, perhaps like others, of names of mountain ranges with TEG in the middle).
More congratulations for you Jack – you have been a regular source of wisdom and enlightenment since I first chanced upon the TftT LiveJournal site back in 2017. To have blogged a 1000 grids to such a consistently high level is truly an epic feat – I hope you will be blogging and commenting for a long time to come.
Thanks also to the setter
Glad of the parsing for TAOISEACH, NHO TEG, took a while to discount Dai and Evan as Welshmen and eventually I saw the answer anyway, leaving me somewhat nonplussed at EUAN – I’ve certainly seen IEUAN as in Evans, the Wales and Lions winger. Edit: Apparently Owen or Owain is the Welsh equivalent of EUAN.
Neat puzzle that didn’t take up too much time.
Congratulations on your 1000 Jack! Tremendous achievement, and it’s great that you & so many others devote time and effort to maintaining these pages, which are a fantastic resource for all the crosswordists out there.
13:16
Accidentally revealed INIT and wasn’t sure TEG was a thing so looked it up. Otherwise I found this really approachable for someone more used to the QC. I finished in around 35 mins so am feeling pretty encouraged to have a more regular dabble. Couldn’t parse INTERIM – very clever! Also really liked NEAR THING. Thanks for all your wonderful blogs Jack, and also for your very helpful comments when not blogging. Congrats.
18 mins, befuddled by COMP, for which get could be a load of things, including POP as mentioned previously, and COMP for me only means competition. Besides that a doddle.
A blog millennialist!
Congratulations, Jack, a stupendous effort. Always like your blogs.
Nice puzzle, LOI COMP somehow known from Vegas casinos “comping” high stakes gamblers. Must have read it in a book. Mildly discombobulated by A_S_T_A not being reversed (rejected) in PASTA, but no other problems.
I haven’t posted in a long while, but Jack’s milestone induced me to send my appreciation and best wishes in recognition of his achievement. Regards to Jack and everyone else.
Good to hear from you K.
Congrats to Jack for his 1,000th blog – an extraordinary milestone which will take some beating.
22 minutes. The only one I was unsure about was COMP but it didn’t seem it could be anything else. The wordplay for TAOISEACH is exactly how I remember the spelling so it was one of my first in, unlike “tanaiste” a couple of days ago. Like Paul, another event on Sunday, the Belgian GP at Spa (poor old George Russell), helped with ESPADRILLE.
27:10
Solved on phone so I was very surprised not to have fumbled an error or two. Everything seemed very straightforward. Thanks to the setter.
Congratulations, jackkt, and thank you for all of your help here.
I’ll take setter’s word for it that EUAN is a Welshman, but have never encountered one other than from Scotland. Irritating. Otherwise a fairly easy canter, though DNK TEG.
26 – After trying every possible combination of letters in TAOISEACH before giving up and reading the clue properly.
Congratulations on your 1000th blog, Jack. I am always grateful for your contributions. Here’s to many more.
Congratulations on your achievement and I hope to be around for your two thousandth.
31.13 for me today with LOI lenient for which I made the mistake of thinking L( iberal) was a component rather than the answer. I’m sure I saw stitch only a matter of days ago. Liked the cluing of espadrille and European.
Yes, congratulations upon, and many thanks for, 1000 blogs.
40 minutes today – good puzzle – Teg was a word that I’d forgotten that I’d seen before, and Comp was a “fingers-crossed” entry – but otherwise an enjoyable puzzle.
My FOI was TEG, helped by driving past Teg’s Nose in Macclesfield many times when visiting my cousin there. TAO IS EACH is how I keep telling myself to remember how to spell the PM, but each time I still have to tease it out. Today the wordplay was very helpful. COMP was LOI. 18:25. Thanks setter and Jack, and many congratulations on your amazing milestone. Keep up the good work!
Yes, well done Jack, an amazing record.
Like you I used to struggle with spelling TAOISEACH but I’ll never have that problem again after solving that clue. In future I will always remember it as being made up of the words TAO + IS + EACH!
Many thanks to the setter and to you for the blog and looking forward to the next 1,000!
Don
Only seeing this late in the day, after many others have already commented, but it is never too late to say thanks Jack for doing a great job. Your work is much appreciated.
Not a virtual gimme like yesterday’s puzzle, but I managed to finish in 34 minutes without too much heavy breathing. NHO AFTER-PARTY but the anagrist was helpful. TEG was always a useful word in Scrabble. I thought a few of the clues were a bit weak (e.g 1ac, 3dn) but no major grumbles.
FOI – ROOD
LOI – IN IT
COD – ADORATION.
Thanks to jackkt and other contributors – and congrats to jackkt for years of sterling service.
Many congrats Jackkt, and thanks too. I took 20’50” on this, and reckon that was five minutes too long. Thought 1 ac was a weak clue, with the answer containing a different form of the verb in the anagram. Also a bit puzzled by EUROPEAN. I suppose it’s ok. It’s the juxtaposition with also-European WELSHMAN that makes it odd. But much enjoyed as ever.
Firstly congratulations and thanks to jackkt.
On the puzzle LOI was COMP which took a while to see. Thanks BW for the reminder about copping steam engines.
A clever, mainly enjoyable puzzle but I too wondered about EUAN. I had a biffed GRAMPIAN for a while wondering whether Ramp and Gian would pass muster.
Quite quick for me.
David
Jackkt.
A thousand congratulations on your millennial milestone. What an achievement!
Your constant encouragement and wizard wisdom are truly exemplary.
Thanks, also, to all your fellow bloggers for their dedication, time and effort in demystifying these arcane puzzles.
Yours gratefully. Jovan.