Solving time: 11:46

Amusing theme this week centred on 15ac involving several across answers (and 22dn), giving me an ideal excuse for a football rant. Steve McClaren wouldn’t even have been on my shortlist for England manager, and his appointment, on the back of a couple of lucky comebacks in Europe against mediocre opposition, demonstrated perfectly the folly of putting a committee in charge of anything, especially where the FA is concerned. Nonetheless, his one useful contribution so far has been to ban the WAGs from future tournaments. Just a shame that I’m not expecting us to qualify for Euro 2008 to give him a chance to action this decision.

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Apologies for the brief write-up today – am a bit pressed for time. A fine puzzle from Phi, with a few excellent clues. Read the rest of this entry »

This was the easiest Inquisitor of the year so far in my opinion. Once I had worked out that the entries at 13ac and 43ac led to the Seven Sages, and that 42ac informed us that it was only their initial that needed to be entered, the challenge was then – “Do I look up the Seven Sages?” or do I try to work out their names. I had heard of the Sages, and could even remember that one of them was called Solon (must have come up in a puzzle or quiz somewhere) so I decided I’d try to work the others out.

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