I don’t see “hell” = “dis”, I had “PITTANCE” entered for 15d. Not satisfactory, but PIT = hell, TAN = beat and CE = church.

Oh also, “Solving time: 15 mins, three mistakes”: it is not “solved” if there are three mistakes.

Fun from Araucaria, and interesting commentary from Rightback.

A bit repetitive, since we got a Waterloo puzzle on the anniversary of the battle.

Oh well, nobody’s perfect, if they were life would be boring.

sheffieldhatter (#13): Is is really surprising that STROWN/OAKWORTH stymied so many people? I knew none of ‘strown’, ‘trow’ or ‘Oakworth’, whereas I did know ‘strewn’ and at least knew that ‘trew’ was a valid word, while ‘Oakheath’ sounds just as plausible as ‘Oakworth’ to me. But you’re quite right that any mistakes write off the “completion” time, though in this case I don’t think extra time would have helped without using references.

Stella (#11): Re littoral, I did of course mean ‘adjective’ rather than ‘verb’ – now corrected, thanks!

tupu (#7): I agree a case can be made for the cryptic reading of 4ac, but what is the surface reading supposed to mean?

I’m not sure to what extent Rightback “cracked” this in 15 minutes, as Carrots says @10. By his own admission he had three answers wrong: Wolmesley for Wellesley, Strewn for Strown, Oakheath for Oakworth and in addition he admits to having Knowall for Knocker (presumably until getting the crossing letters). While full of admiration for his amazingly quick completion times, I remain to be convinced that Rightback is really solving crosswords rather than simply filling in words that appear to fit together.

P.S. There is a chat room message waiting for those planning to attend the “bit of a do” kindly organised by K`s Dad on 29th January.

I didn’t know his surname, but worked it out from the wordplay, and this, with 9/10, led me into the theme. I had no problem with ‘littoral’, this being the normal Spanish word – and we have a lot of it -, though with only one ‘t’ I have a quibble with your blog, though: I can’t imagine a context in which this word could be a verb, unless it can be used to express “sail along the coastline”. Perhaps you meant adverb?

Like most, I entered ‘strewn’ to start with, but wasn’t satisfied with ‘trew’='trust’, so checked in Chambers that the alternative participle existed.

As Mr. Beaver says, it must be hard for someone with such a wide field of knowledge to judge how much of it is ‘general’

Thanks anyway Araucaria and Rightback….for cracking it in fifteen minutes….I don`t know how you do it.

I read the MIL in 4a as ‘mile’ contracted – this would have fitted ‘goes little way’ in the clue, but I couldn’t see what the ‘very’ was doing. rightback’s interpretation is much better!