Loads of misdirection, and I think I was fooled by every single one.

On day one I got OPERA SERIA. And nothing else. Day two brought about four or five more, some in pencil (4 x 4, RINGER). Day three started with the thrill of IODINE – I just happened to think of Odin, followed by a synaptic explosion and a big smile. A few hours later, with some assistance from OneLook, everything was in place, although SHOE TREE was still in pencil. For the fourth time in three days.

For quite a while, the intricate and clever constructions led me to think this might also have a Nina somewhere. I still think it does, I just can’t find it.

I had the wikipedia “British children’s authors” category open for research for about half an hour, before somehow I guessed at TABERNACLE (which can be a box containing holy texts of course, making the core of a church “portable”). My only regret is that I did not use a crayon to write in CRAYON.

“Yesterday” there was mention and admiration of Araucaria using Skype and double-click; today, in 5, for the “crawler” part of the clue to be exactly accurate, it must be mentioned that web-crawler and spider are fairly synonymous terms for automated search engine robots, since the arachnids scurry, leap, run, and dart as much as they crawl.

Oh and finally even though I inked in 4 x 4 – and even wrote it that way next to the clue while it was in pencil, then erased, then pencilled back in again – I never parsed why a Chelsea Tractor would be just a FOUR-BY-FOUR in Europe…

So let me recap. We have humo(u)r, massive successful misdirection, an incredibly intricate triplet of inter-related clues, allusions to at least three scientific disciplines (the chemistry, of course, the NEWTON which was so droll, and the maths in 10,3), Greek and Norse mythology and perhaps even a reference to Easter Island.

What a tour de force.

So thank you, Paul, for an excellent weeks’ work, and Andrew and the rest of you lot for a great blog.

PS – RCWhiting – I do think I remember when you arrived on this blog, and some of the early chafing as styles and opinions clashed. Your comment at 12 is my “blog post of the day”. Very nice, though it’s a pity you will probably never see this comment (and have probably never seen any of mine, since they are always at least 36 hours late!).

Best regards,

Huw

The chemical symbols fooled me each time? One would have thought that after being tripped up twice I would have been on the lookout!!!

First in was 12A with a tentative BIDDER. Consequently last in was GOLDEN GATE when I finally remembered that BIDDER was dodgy and put in RINGER. Although BIDDER has some merit and unfortunately has the correctly placed I and R.

Thanks Andrew and Paul.

I finished this correctly after a busy morning and afternoon and only got into the spirit of it towards the end. I found it clever and quite testing but, unlike most of you, I was not greatly thrilled by it while solving. I am well aware that I might have felt differently on another day, and I am already likeing it more in retrospect as I write this. I did like the element abbreviations which I became conscious of after ‘iodine’.

It took me a long time to see 15,17 for some reason.

My favourite clues were 9a, 10,3, 1d, and 21d.