I’d be interested to know how everyone else got on with this as I found it very easy – solved in just over 11 minutes, far and away my quickest ever time for a Nestor puzzle. Lots of fun though, as we’ve come to expect, and some very subtle and deceptive wordplay to be found. I missed a lot of it while I was solving (which is probably why it got finished so quickly) so it was good to have the opportunity to look at it again while I was writing this up.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | (RUST)*,TONES,STUFF – STRUT ONE’S STUFF. |
| 10 | IN,SIP,I’D |
| 11/12 | PP in (HER FAIRY TALE’VE)* – HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Excellent clue. |
| 13 | COR in AN – “oak’s fruit” does give the game away somewhat but then it’s quite easy to miss the “put something in AN” wordplay so that adds a bit of difficulty. |
| 14 | ABS,(TEN)* |
| 15 | MP in HURRAH (rev) – I would have got this a lot quicker if “boo” hadn’t lodged itself in my mind for “disapproving outburst”, which then proved difficult to shake off. |
| 18 | NEED,REBA[-te] (rev) – another good one, with a smooth-as-silk surface. |
| 23 | PIN in AG – I liked this too. Ag is the chemical symbol for silver so “silver-plated” works as an container. |
| 25 | (MYXO[C for V]IRUS)* – Superb clue. Misleading definition (“Ferry crew” – Bryan Ferry is/was the lead singer of ROXY MUSIC), very convincing surface reading and a neat trick to indicate swapping the V with a C (“twentyfold increase” – think Roman numerals and multiplication). Hats off! |
| 26 | IN HAL[-f],OR – an OR is an Operating Room. [Edit: as beermagnet points out in the comments, this should be INHALER]. |
| 27 | hidden reversed in “espiONAGE ROw” |
| 28 | OST,RICH,FEAT,HER – I liked the definition “might end up in boa”. “East German woman” is a hard phrase to break up too. |
| Down | |
| 3 | PL,ANNE in UND |
| 4 | OD[-e],DI[-t]TY |
| 5 | HERE in ET AL – this and the previous 2 clues I filled in from the definition and crossing letters. They’re all good clues but I really liked this one: “This place is choking and others airy”. |
| 6 | hidden in “whoSE PIAno” |
| 8 | (TINY HALF COFFEE)* – FLY IN THE FACE OF. |
| 9 | (DAMP OCEAN AIR IS)* – CINEMA PARADISO. Another one solved without really working out the wordplay, although this is one of the more straightforward ones. |
| 16 | (BUM)* in RECENT |
| 19 | PITH in E,ET |
| 21 | U,P[-o]STAGE |
| 22 | EX,PO’S,E – “Royal Mail closures” is EX P[ost] O[office]S |
| 24 | LOG<,GI – never heard of him but easy wordplay and checking letters left no doubt. |
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