On of the more tractable of late from Bradman. Not that I’m complaining, as I was strapped for time this morning and feared a more protracted than average solving time. In the interests of not posting too late in the day (again!), I’ll post a skeletal, solutions-only blog here now and return to flesh it out later.

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Bannsider’s puzzles are consistently excellent and this was no exception. Funny grid though, with that blob of white squares in the middle. I’ve never read anything by Arnold Bennett so I have to confess that I used his Wikipedia page to “solve” the thematic clues, although I think I had already worked out 2 and 21 by that point.

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I’m sure there’s a witty title that could be given to this very ingenious and entertaining puzzle, with its themes of days and British pop but I found the puzzle itself challenging enough!  There are a couple of clues that perhaps Andrew or someone else can help explain more fully.

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Well well, this was very nice! If Phi gets bumped from a Friday, there’s usually something afoot. For any newcomers (and, with any luck, there will be some), today is the 2nd anniversary of this site, and what better way to celebrate than by having a Nina in its honour. The perimeter message running clockwise from 14A reads FIFTEENSQUARED DOT NET, which is of course where we all are right now.

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Charybdis always guarantees a nicely worked out theme and that is what we had here. The title, the mention of a war film and the date all suggested a slightly early puzzle looking at Remembrance Day or the Armistice. That’s what he wanted us to think, maybe. There were no misprints or extra words and so the solving was straightforward and very enjoyable. Most words went in with no problems. A couple seemed not to fit. Then I noticed that they fitted backwards.

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I thought this was the hardest EV for quite a while. It took me over twice as long as usual to complete and I needed my full arsenal of ‘aids’.

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