“An interesting week… the Everyman was just what I needed after a hard day’s wall building, and Rufus was just right on Monday. Tuesday came in nicely for my mood and worn intellectual abilities, too. Wednesday was a themed puzzled of the sort I dislike, but that’s just my opinion and taste”; and Thursday was a theme-type that I really enjoyed.

Now for today’s Tramp (Thank you, Tramp! Thank you, Eileen!).

Slow going for me, in spite of many answers seeming a lot easier than I found them once solved. Probably a “wavelength” thing.

I didn’t even notice the theme, despite having JONESes, CHAPMAN, and seeing “Cleese” in a clue – even after I settled down to chasing the anagram for 7/1! Even after deciding it probably ended with CIRCUS! Then I think “FLYING” dropped and I felt silly, betting that some buzzed through this puzzle in minutes rather than hours. That set me up to force in PALINgs (I keep forgetting that “ling” means heather), and for some mild disappointment that the “other Terry”, Mr. Gilliam, was not represented (as far as I could tell). And I completely forgot about poor Eric. Reading the blog (and thanks for the lack of spoilers early on, forcing me to keep hunting!) made me sit here for another 20 minutes until I found both of them.

I was much embarrassed to have to resort to ?c?a?t?y?t?s at OneLook for 26a – despite “McCarthy” being one of the first words in my head after deciding “they wanted reds out” was the definition early on. I think by the time I was trying to solve the anagram I had forgotten that, and the odd letter juxtapositions it creates.

What a week indeed. I completely forgive my “distaste” for Wednesday’s theme given the perfect jewels surrounding it; after all, I am sure it gave some solvers just as great a pleasure as these others did for me.

Sometimes I think we should also thank Hugh Stephenson for his behind-the-scenes efforts in bringing us such a well-assembled series of puzzles.

Thanks Eileen and Tramp; I must remember next time you have partially occluded themes.

For what it is worth, first in was ANEURISMS.

I can’t remember the clue but it was broken down as EASY around (SE+MP+L). It wasn’t a great clue.

In the end I think Hugh was right. It’s true that a lot of solvers posting here would tolerate ESEMPLASY and a lot of those solvers would spot the theme. However, that subset of solvers is a biased sample from the solving population. There are many people who struggle with daily cryptics and you can’t alienate those completely. Who am I to judge what the Guardian-solving public as a whole
would tolerate? My only slight gripe is that it could have been used for a Prize puzzle or I could have put a little preamble saying “change an unknown letter and the group is complete” or something.

I remember looking at this puzzle at Christmas time and thinking there were too many difficult words and too many easy clues. I’m glad it seems, on the whole, to have gone down well. I do have a some better ones to come.

Neil