I’m sure you know that you can find the blogs for any puzzle, using the search facilities on the right hand side of the page, and, as I said, whoever blogged the puzzle will still receive messages from you if you need further clarification.

Happy catch-ups – and I hope to hear more from you before long!

Thanks for the response. I’m a Yank, now permanently residing in England, and my wife, though British, has no interest in sport, so we indeed were unfamiliar with this meaning of “strip”. We failed to look it up in our Chambers as it was the last one in and we accepted our somewhat convoluted parsing. Some setters do indicate a single letter by throwing in any old word starting with that letter, but I should have known better than to think Araucaria would stoop so low!

We have only recently started doing the Guardian cryptics online and are working our way up towards the present. When we get caught up in a month or so and are actually doing the current day’s puzzle, you may see more comments from me – more likely to be expressing puzzlement or amazement than to be offering enlightenment.

By the way, Cowshill is my regular online identity and reflects the fact that we live in the tiny village of Cowshill, Upper Weardale, County Durham.

It;s never too late: the blogger receives an email of all comments on his / her blog.

I’m struggling to find another way of explaining 11ac ["Go further than the previous sporting gear?"] other than as in the blog and subsequent comments. I don’t think your reading works, because I can’t find ‘S = sporting’ anywhere.

Is it that you’re unfamiliar with this meaning of ‘strip’? – Collins: ‘the clothes worn by the members of a team, esp a football team’. Clubs change their strip regularly, involving their fans in inordinate expense to avoid being seen in the ‘out strip’.

Maxine@19 – at least Wlfie@14 agrees with you!

5ac was first in and pointed me in the right direction. Good to be reminded of Miranda and my Sussex childhood. HB’s neice was in my class.
Jailbird always reminds me of Elvis, of course and looks very American – although after years of seeing it, the English version looks rather odd now.

Happy New Year to all setters and bloggers and Gaufrid, too .

Giovanna xx

Last “on Thames” for me was Oxford, probably because all it means to me is a dreary part of the A34 and a dog track! Oh yes, and a supiciously large number of fictional murders.

Goring is certainly small. It only rates half a railway station name, as in Goring and Streatley, which is one stop from Cholsey where I do my preserved railway volunteering, and hence despite being the most obscure, it was the easiest for me.

I agree with Wolfie@14, in that I found it almost as easy as yesterday’s, but I think the clues on the whole were more pleasing today; the main difference was the grid, which leads to essentially four mini puzzles. Putting BRIDAL held me up in the BL corner.

I enjoyed this (apart from the deplorably sexist 18ac) but found it at least as easy as yesterday’s offering from Logodaedalus and wondered why, unlike yesterday, there have been no complaints about lack of challenge etc.