I had grease cans for 1 down which made me try to make ‘clair’ work for 15 ac. I see now why it wouldn’t.

Sorry I just spotted that 33 had made the same correction to the Dutch phrase as I did. Neuk has, as its English equivalent, another four letter word ending in ‘k’ and sounds quite like one of the trinity of setters that Sil (33) would like to see again.

Today we had the choice between Enigmatist’s alter ego IO in the FT and Auster. Although Auster’s previous crossword (30 Nov) was more or less thrashed (something that everyone seems to have forgotten, which is good), we did hers and saved IO for later. I am happy to say that, for us, it was fairly OK today.

Maybe Eve’s not ‘the first wife’, the clue (19ac) reads well, just like 8d – although this was already the third time this week that ‘ne/nee’ turned up, so let’s not use it for a while (just like Emma).
Our favourites were the very well constructed 20ac (but why is CANDLE-LIGHT hyphenated?) and the, in our opinion, fantastic 16d (RAINCOATS), worth a Paul – I get Andrew’s point (and thx for the blog) that ‘timeless’ could mean ‘remove every t’, but for us it was fine this way.
Oh, and 21d (LOCAL) – very funny.

So, high marks from the Dutch Jury? [to be fair, in cooperation with the British]
I fear not, but perhaps that is mainly because we are very sensitive (at the moment) when it comes to imprecise cluing – and there was some here, especially in the first few Across clues.

In 1ac, GAMINESS is a noun, so the definition must be ‘a wild flavour’, but then ‘with’? The inclusion of that word in the definition would have meant an adjective, something that confused us.
Then 9ac: EMU is, of course, the Big Bird (why capitals? – Australian?), but ‘is to fly out’ for the rest is a bit unusual. One might expect IS + FLY*, but instead we get IS attached to FLY, and then turned into LSIFY. That little word ‘to’ in the middle – well, not sure about it.
And talking about ‘about it’, there is a similar thing in 12ac. First we have SCHOOL and then ‘Nothing’ (O) with RICH about it, which surely can’t be the words to say that RICH has to go around O ánd at the same time the anagrind. Or is ‘needs’ the anagrind for the whole thing, which would be a bit odd given the fact that the first part (SCHOOL) is completely intact.
And then there’s the somewhat dubious or misleading use of ‘about time’ in 10ac. VEN with ‘about it’ AGE? We thought, this time we would like to see the word ‘it’ somewhere.
When we were looking at the clue of 18ac, we thought: What does this mean? The construction is fine, but it is not much more than a construction, isn’t it?
The last word we got was COMPTROLLERS. Bit of a pity that the first part of it (CO+MP) is more than an Araucarian ‘some’ of the word ‘Company’.

My PinC was rather annoyed by the fact that she couldn’t be sure whether clues were precise or not. It didn’t prevent us from completing it.
And fortunately, there’s a lot more good than bad.
But still.
[It would be nice to see a Puck, Shed or Crucible again]

that is what crossed my mind when i saw the clue.

I have been unable to find positive evidence about when or where Adam and Eve married but, if Chambers has the details, then it must be so.

neuk is scottish for nook, which is why i said it must be in chambers. just checked, and it’s there. i lived in scotland for 22 years and i wouldn’t be surprised if it came up in a crossword one day – so bear it in mind! by the way – this is in no way one upmanship!

Having lived in The Netherlands for 5 years, maybe I can help the Setters with 3 much over-used phrases from that country:

even kijk

uitstekend

een ogenblijk

Now let’s see what Paul and/or Araucaria can do with these.