It’s Maskarade filling the midweek slot…
… with a nice variety of clue types, mostly straightforward, with some requiring general knowledge, fairly easily gettable, with internet help. My favourite of the anagrams was 1dn SPOILT BRAT and I also liked 14ac SEAFARERS, 22ac ELECTRA, 25ac OLEANDERS, for the feasible-sounding nurserymen, 5dn MRI SCANNER and 6dn MERCHANT, for the reminder of some favourite films.
Thanks to Maskarade for an enjoyable puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Many thanks to my fellow bloggers who stood in for me (some of them more than once) in the past two months, during my hospitalisation and continuing slow and steady recuperation at home and to commenters here, for their good wishes. It’s good to be back.
Across
9 Old fellow at French guest-house outside of Exeter (9)
PENSIONER
PENSION (French guest house) + E[xete]R
10 Somewhat well-endowed woman (5)
ELLEN
Contained in wELL-ENdowed
11 Complaint from one head about pupils (7)
ILLNESS
I (one) + NESS (head) round LL (learners, so pupils)
12 Short time before new seed withdraws (7)
SECEDES
SEC[ond] (short time) + an anagram (new) of SEED
13 Trout-fishing river’s matches (5)
TESTS
I originally had this down as a double definition but then realised that the first part is wordplay (note the apostrophe): the River Test (one of the basic crossword British rivers) is ‘the birthplace of modern fly fishing’ – see here
14 Limeys from a distant place amongst spectators (9)
SEAFARERS
AFAR (a distant place) in SEERS (spectators) – Limey: a British sailor or ship, referring to the requirement for British sailors to drink lime juice as a protection against scurvy, and so it’s a North American slang word for a British person
16 1964 horror fantasy film of Lazio playing the A.S. team? (4,7,4)
ROME AGAINST ROME
An excellent clue for an apparently execrable film (see here) – also known as ‘War of the Zombies’, which mercifully passed me by in 1964
Lazio and Associazione Sportiva Roma are the two principal football teams in Rome
19 Giant Carmelites, perhaps, too much to expect (4,5)
TALL ORDER
TALL (giant) + ORDER (Carmelites, perhaps)
21 Sounds essential but cut short, I see (5)
MUSIC
MUS[t] (essential, as a noun, cut short) + I C (I see)
22 In real trouble, shock treatment for sort of complex (7)
ELECTRA
ECT (electroconvulsive therapy, shock treatment) in an anagram (trouble) of REAL
23 Straw breaking camel’s back, doubly profligate (7)
WASTREL
An anagram (breaking) of STRAW plus the last two letters (doubly) of camEL
24 Severely criticize cook (5)
ROAST
Double definition
25 Flowering shrubs from R. E. Dale & Son (9)
OLEANDERS
An anagram of R E DALE and SON
Down
1 Tip: borstal may be what he needs (6,4)
SPOILT BRAT
An anagram (maybe) of TIP BORSTAL
2 Representation of the USA by pawnbrokers before midday (5,3)
UNCLE SAM
UNCLES (slang for pawnbrokers) + AM (ante meridiem, before midday)
3 Several folk snorkelling (6)
DIVERS
Double definition
4 Australian group is overabundant, we’re told (4)
INXS
Sounds like (we’re told’ in excess’ (overabundant)
5 Danger is spoken of in style of radiological machine (3,7)
MRI SCANNER
RISC (sounds like – is spoken of – ‘risk’, danger) in MANNER (style)
6 Wholesale trader with Ivory’s film partner (8)
MERCHANT
Double definition – see here for the film partners (take your pick)
7 Santa likely, initially, to move cautiously on it? (6)
SLEDGE
Initial letters of Santa Likely + EDGE (move cautiously) – Santa’s conveyance is more usually called a sleigh (which is, in fact, rather different from a sledge – see here and EIGH didn’t parse
8 It’s ours to bear! (4)
ONUS
It’s ON US
14 Flower and photo by fierce type (10)
SNAPDRAGON
SNAP (photo) + DRAGON (fierce type)
15 Dumbfounded there is no address? (10)
SPEECHLESS
(Not quite) a double definition
17 One no longer believing in a job caused worry (8)
APOSTATE
A POST (a job) + ATE (caused worry)
18 The Spectator or Sunday newspaper (8)
OBSERVER
Double definition
20 General method to establish latitude (6)
LEEWAY
(Robert E.) LEE (the familiar crossword Confederate general) + WAY (method)
21 Craftsmen for two generations (6)
MASONS
MA and SONS (two generations)
22 Nobleman nearly at the centre (4)
EARL
Middle letters of nEARLy
23 Heartless worries! (4)
WOES
WO[rri]ES
Favourite: SPEECHLESS, WOES, INXS – I met these guys in Australia in the early 1980s before they became world-famous.
New for me: ROME AGAINST ROME – never heard of the film – I only managed to solve this because I know of Lazio as the region in which Rome is. Also new for me A.S. team as I have no interest in soccer or football.
15d I was fine with it being a dd in that speech-less is address-less/no address.
Welcome back, Eileen – I did not know you have been ill. I wish you a smooth recovery.
Welcome back Eileen. Very happy to see your blog today.
Best wishes for good health.
Thanks for the lovely blog Eileen.
Great to see you back, Eileen!
Favourite was WOES.
I wasn’t impressed by INXS – the clue seems almost completely non-cryptic.
Thanks Eileen and Maskarade.
Had to reveal 4d – would never have got it. Welcome back, Eileen.
[Welcome back,Eileen. Hope the recovery’s going well]
Good to have you back Eileen. I liked the slightly odd parsing of MRI SCANNER and that the puzzle wasn’t a jigsaw/alphabetical. A bit heavy on the GK (proper nouns?) but Maskarade never strays too far from pub quiz territory. DIVERS could possible have used an indication that it’s an archaic term eg “Several old people …”
Cheers E&M
Welcome back, Eileen, and best wishes for a full recovery. Thanks for the blog – I needed help with the SCANNER and had to consult a list of Italian films for 16a, but it is indeed an excellent clue.
Lovely to know that you are well enough to blog again, Eileen. I liked WOES and MRI SCANNER.
Welcome back Eileen and all the best for your recovery.
I found this a very enjoyable solve with everything well clued and gettable albeit with a fair amount of staring (particularly at the MRI SCANNER and the SPOILT BRAT where I was initially looking for a single word) and some research needed. New for me: the river TESTS (banked for the future), R A R, the Carmelites, UNCLES as pawnbrokers and the film partners.
SNAPDRAGON came up in a Paul I just looked at in the archive from ~11 months ago so that came to mind readily.
Thanks to E & M.
Great stuff which I managed to complete quickly but needed the blog to confirm why some of my answers were correct.
Not encountered the several definition of DIVERS before. Thankfully I couldn’t think of any other synonym for snorkellers.
The Ivory partnership was not in my general knowledge.
Could see what was going on with R AGAINST R but not heard of the film and was unsure if they wanted Roma or Rome. The English variety thankfully seemed most plausible.
I knew the river but not that is was particularly associated with trout fishing.
Couldn’t quite see how MRI SCANNER worked and originally had EYES (ice/danger)CANNER in there. Is it kosher to have a homophone if it’s not pronounced as such in the word?
Enjoyable puzzle though and admire the breadth of clue types.
Welcome back Eileen and thanks to yourself and Maskarade.
I laughed at the TALL ORDER and enjoyed the heartless worries, but this was too much of a pub quiz today. I wouldn’t have been old enough to be allowed to see what was presumably an X-rated film in 1964, even if I’d known of its existence – which I didn’t, then or now. As I only knew one of Rome’s football teams, that was a reveal, as was MRI SCANNER (the misleading enumeration didn’t help.) Like Eileen, I thought SLEDGE should have been a sleigh.
Lovely to have you back, Eileen.
Those of us old enough to have been brought up with the Authorised Version will remember reading about Jesus healing people of “divers diseases”, and wondering how people got the bends in Biblical times.
Welcome back Eileen – you’ve been missed.
Hope your recovery goes well
Welcome back Eileen.
Simonbyc @9 -The river is simply TEST – The S comes from the clue
I commented a few days ago about having had an MRI scan (it was vaguely relevant to some clue or other) so MRI SCANNER rather jumped out at me. It is indeed a slightly unusual clue, a sort of “looks like a homophone”, because of course RISC is not pronounced like “risk” in the answer!
Many thanks for the entertainment Maskarade, and many thanks for the blog Eileen, it’s great to see you back.
Surely the answer to “It’s ours to bear” must be FRENCH 🙂
Dreadfully tempted to watch the NHO Rome against Rome, in the hopes it’s enjoyably bad — it certainly sounds so!
Am I the only one to have foolishly thought until today that INXS rhymed with Lynxes?
Welcome back Eileen, and thanks to you and Maskarade!
Great to see you back in action Eileen!
Crispy @15 – yes just typo, thanks!
So good to have you back, Eileen, missed you.
A dnf here as never heard of INXS. All the rest do-able but raised an eyebrow at the iffy risk homophone.
Enjoyable solve many thanks, both.
Someone’s got to say it, but shouldn’t 5d be (1,1,1,7)?
(Oh, look at all the worms wriggling in that can.)
No, Calabar Bean, I also pronounced INXS as rhyming with ‘lynxes ‘ I can still hear my teenage children laughing at me all those years ago !!
All went in smoothly enough, except that long one across the middle. Even with everything else in, I couldn’t see it: football doesn’t interest me in the least, so the names of even big-time Italian clubs are well outside my GK. I was wondering if there was some maybe partial anagram I’d missed. It was a “guess and bung it in” in the end, after which Wikipedia confirmed there was in fact such a film as ROME AGAINST ROME, though it’s not in my mental list of truly-awful SF/fantasy films. Hence, for me, a double level of obscurity. So I learnt a few new things today; let’s call that a plus.
Thanks Maskarade, and welcome back, Eileen!
Welcome back Eileen. I always enjoy your erudite and informative blogs. Very best wishes for your continued recovery, from a fellow denizen of Leicestershire (I believe I’m right on that?)
Welcome back Eileen and thanks for the blog! This wasn’t as simple as the last Mascarade, and some clues were very elegant. I particularly liked MASONS, WOES, LEEWAY and SLEDGE. INXS, I think, is a tautology as the group name is itself a soundalike. Thanks Mascarade for the puzzle!
Welcome back, Eileen. I’ve missed you. I hope you continue to get better.
Great to see you again Eileen, as my favourite blogger
And an enjoyable puzzle as usual from Maskerade
So thanks both
greyfox @24 – 100%!
Good to see you back, Eileen.
Quite enjoyed the crossword (WOES is a brilliant spot) but the high spot of my morning was seeing you back in action, Eileen. Bon rétablissement!
Straightforward even for me. Had to check exactly where Lazio is and nho the film but guessed it right.
INXS came to fame over here when nice girl next door Kylie Minogue paired up with INXS bad boy front man Michael Hutchence.
Liked ELECTRA and TALL ORDER.
Welcome back Eileen.
Ah, yes, by far the best bit of news what with coming on here this morning was to see Eileen’s name up in lights again. Welcome back!
On the whole a good offering from Maskarade today, but one or two quibbles. Thought 16ac might be deemed a bit unfair if you had no knowledge of Italian football or indeed knew of the film (I didn’t). Couldn’t parse MRI SCANNER, and last one in INYX raised an eyebrow until I saw Eileen’s explanation…
With 16a, the problem is not that you need to know the name of the film, you don’t, but you need to know a bit about Italian football.
A joy to have you back Eileen. Like Calabar Bean @17, I also thought something French was going on with ONUS. There were a few write-ins in the bottom half but ROME v ROME was superb and once again, do we really need to know that you’re not interested in football? I also enjoyed SEAFARERS, TALL ORDER, SPOILT BRAT, INXS (best band to come out of Oz), MERCHANT and WASTREL.
ronald @32: I raised an eyebrow at your loi INYX 😊
Ta Maskarade & Eileen.
Welcome back Eileen. It is good to have you back with us. Hope the convalescence is going well.
NHO the film or the team A.S. Roma but did know Lazio, so managed to guess that one after getting a few of the crossers. I agree with other complaints about MRI SCANNER – A homophone of something that is not actually pronounced like that in the answer seems a step too far to me.
Eileen, I’m glad to see you back in action – it’s always good to see your take on a puzzle.
Others have already covered my reservations with 16a, 4d and 5d, but I enjoyed the rest. I had the same thought as CalabarBean @17 on 8d – I wonder whether Maskarade intended that particular misdirection?
@PhilB #31 – The real tabloid news was his relationship with TV presenter Paula Yates, wife of Bob Geldof and daughter of Opportunity Knocks presenter Hughie Green.
I can’t see how snorkellers are divers. One famously goes under the surface while the other necessarily stays on the top in order to breathe (via their snorkels).
Best wishes to Eileen and thanks to setter.
Oh hooray Eileen’s back – you’ve been much missed!
I found this an odd mix of delightful and pesky. WOES was brilliant, LEEWAY and UNCLE SAM were pleasing, TALL ORDER was amusing.
Like simonc and gladys I was thrown by the enumeration for 5D: “MRI” is not a three-letter word.
Santa does indeed travel on a sleigh, not a sledge (having S & L, I spent a while trying to make EIGH work) but in any case, surely the whole point about the man is that he careers around the world on it at a breakneck speed, rather than moving cautiously? (Or was there a “Santa, the early years” period, before he became grey and grew the beard…???)
I really wasn’t wild about 16A either. I know very little about Italian football, and even though I have a Film Degree had never heard of that one. In the end I guessed it after I had all the crossers (tossing a coin for ROMA vs ROME).
But minor irritations with a less-than perfect crossword are just that, minor. For Eileen’s back, and all is well again.
Thank you very much for the informative and helpful blog, and thanks to Maskarade for the challenge.
TripleJumper@37. Yes, but, the main point about snorkelling is that it allows you to swim face-down on the surface, so as soon as you see something interesting below you can dive down to inspect it closely.
Welcome back, Eileen, and thanks for the blog-
TripleJumper @37: I remember the very overt flirtation between the two on The Tube and many years later, on The Big Breakfast. Alas, it ended tragically for all concerned including Geldof.
I needed the explanation for MRI Scanner, and am unfamiliar with the Test river, but otherwise this was smooth sailing. Hope that’s the case for your recovery Eileen!
Andy in Durham @35: I can’t speak for anyone else, but just to be clear I wasn’t complaining about MRI SCANNER @16; in fact I thought it was rather inventive. Maybe a homophone lookalike could become a recognised clue type?
Great to see Eileen back and best wishes for a full recovery.
Fairly straightforward solve, apart from ROME AGAINST ROME, although the clue was quite inventive. I liked the limey SEAFARERS, the WASTREL with the straw breaking camel’s back, and the borstal’s SPOILT BRAT (great anagram spot). There are. two quite frequent moans that seem to be rather pointless. One about enumeration – no MRI should be 3 according to the Guardian guide and dictionaries. The other about homophones – enough said!
Thanks Maskarade and Eileen for the usual superb blog.
Lovely to have you back, Eileen.
Thanks to you for the blog, and to Maskarade for the puzzle.
My favourite clue was the one for WASTREL. Very clever!
Blaise@37 Yes, that’s true, but in the pedantic world of 125 a swimmer would also be a diver since I have been known to pop down for a closer look without a snorkel attached.
Apparently the 1964 film was an example of a “peplum” fantasy. I look forward to seeing PEPLUM in a crossword one day (if I can remember it!)
@Calabar Bean #17 Yes I agree! I thought it was a very clever linguistic clue…..but I was wrong.
A clue about Italian football and 1964 horror films is definitely a TALL ORDER for me. Otherwise very enjoyable! Thanks Eileen
Good to have you back, Eileen. I wish you a speedy recovery.
Welcome back Eileen! What a treat to see you blogging again — I’ve missed you! You even had an almost name check at 10a on your return 🙂
Wonderful puzzle that gradually and steadily revealed itself. After a long wait, second last in, 4d INXS, was followed by a loud clang from the tea tray. LOI, 8d ONUS, was another four-letter word with the same crossers (_N_S), so I had to go through all the same possibilities again, and get smacked by the same tea tray again. It took a while because like Calabar Bean @17 and others I figured “ours to bear” was some kind of translation indicator
All good fun, though. Among a great cohort of clues, standouts were 12a SECEDES (I spelled it correctly this time, after yesterday’s fiasco), 14a SEAFARERS (“afar” misdirection, with different pronunciation between wordplay and solution), 21a MUSIC (“Sounds” definition nicely disguised as a soundalike indicator), 23a WASTREL (interesting use of “back, doubly” to indicate the last two letters), 20d LEEWAY (good surface)
The 1964 Italian film 16a ROME AGAINST ROME sounds like a hoot, with a climactic battle between living Roman soldiers and undead Roman soldiers — whew! In addition to WAR OF THE ZOMBIES, another alternate title is NIGHT STAR: GODDESS OF ELECTRA (22a anyone?)
AlanC @34…ha! I must say that having my last two to solve at 4d, 8d both being something N something S did rather scramble my blogged up brain this morning. Though 8d wasn’t too much of a burden once I’d twigged that, the group/band was another matter. If we’re talking Australian bands, I’m much more in tune with the likes of AC/DC, though I suppose the original Young family members had emigrated to Oz from Scotland…
The sun is shining , we could reach double figures temperature for the Lancashire Riviera this afternoon , the birds are singing , my seedlings are coming up and Eileen is back doing the blogs . Reasons to be cheerful in a world gone mad . Thanks for the blog , best wishes for a steady recovery .
Pretty good overall , I think ROME AGAINST ROME is a reference to the water polo rivalry . The only Italian football teams in crosswordland are Inter Milan and their great adversaries Exhume Milan .
ronald@51 Snap!
Roz@52 🙂
Yes, the Romans seem to have many divers teams
[Roz@52: thanks for cheering me up. A world gone mad, as you say, and I have just spent far too long unsuccessfully wrestling with telephone banking systems. ]
Great fun. I have no quibbles at all with such inventive clues (though I also tried to justify SLEIGH at first). SPOILT BRAT was my COTD.
I hadn’t heard of the film either, but to complain about top Italian soccer teams being ‘obscure’ is unreasonable – I’m sure to the population at large they are more familiar than the ELECTRA complex or words like APOSTATE.
Thanks to Maskarade and Eileen (welcome back!)
Welcome back, Eileen. As a U.S. solver, I rely on your cogent and entertaining explanations. Be well.
Hmmm. I found this mostly enjoyable but flawed.
16A is simply a poor clue IMO as well as being technically wrong – the team is A.S. Roma, not Rome. Even with that allowance, we have a movie that almost nobody has heard of (even its Wikip page describes it as a “minor” entry in a pulp genre that died before most of us were born) and that most filled in from the crossers with a shrug, especially those unfamiliar not merely with soccer but with Italian teams. (I’m not even confident that the average soccer fan would have known that Lazio played in Rome.) And consequently, we were denied help with many of the crossers that link the top and bottom halves of the puzzle.
Nothing to say that hasn’t been said, except to echo: Welcome back Eileen!
Roz @51 has nicely summed up my general feelings (though I’m not in Lancashire & am not a gardener!). I always look for Eileen’s comments (if she isn’t actually blogging), and having been away for a while was concerned when she was conspicuously absent, and I could find no way of discerning why. Such a relief to see her blogging today! Welcome back.
Last autumn whilst I was driving on holiday, my wife was reading out clues from that day’s crossword, then accessing the blog to parse the (many) I couldn’t get. She started by reading out the preamble that most bloggers give, and immediately I said “That sounds like Eileen.” It was of course.
Other excellent bloggers are available, and I’m grateful to them all!
[Also Roz@51, wouldn’t it be great if Bury won the FA Cup thereby qualifying for the Europa League & being drawn to play Inter?]
Lovely to have you back, Eileen 🙂
simonc @21 Someone normally says it. Then someone else normally says it’s the Guardian’s style, if the blogger hasn’t already. So, I feel we’ve gone through the motions there. Mission accomplished.
I think I did this quite quickly, but the PC version doesn’t tell you like the app does. As people have suggested, it was more like a quiz in places. As a disciple of James Richardson’s Gazetta Football Italia (that ran for a few years post Italia 90 with David Platt, Gazza, Des Walker and eventually Paul Ince relocating to Serie A) I knew the two teams, even if the film didn’t come straight to mind.
Good fun. Welcome back Eileen.
I confidently put in Arm Scanner for 5 down! I suppose that would be danger spoken by a Cockney though! Thank you Eileen for enlightening me and the rest of the explanations. Welcome back and speedy recovery. Thanks also to Maskarade.
Thanks Maskarade and Eileen—welcome back!! Sending best wishes for smooth and swift recuperation.
This was a fairly smooth solve for me, and lacking a bunch of the GK (the river Test, uncles for pawnbrokers, etc.) was mostly not a barrier. I did take some internet help to identify Lazio as a Roman team and to remind me of “pension”, which I certainly knew back in my French major days but couldn’t dredge up this morning—it didn’t help that while I’ve seen the word pensioner before, we don’t use it stateside.
I liked the mix of clues overall. I haven’t decided how I feel about MRI SCANNER – “risc” for “risk” feels a bit dodgy to me, but I may fall on the side of finding it more playful than unfair.
(Martin@62 is there an app that still shows timing? I’m using the Guardian app and no timer that I can see, and I miss it. I’m still mourning the deprecated Guardian Puzzles app, not least because I don’t like having to click past the daily horror of headlines to get to my puzzle respite.)
Hooray, hooray, Eileen is back! I’ve been scanning the blogs for weeks hoping that she’d pop in and comment, and here she is in full bloggery! And the sun is shining in Connecticut as chez Roz and rain my wash away the heaps of snow that’ve been here for a month or more .
I knew pension because I’ve stayed in one. When I was 8 my parents took me along on a European vacation, and we stayed at the Pension Dessart in Paris that my father had found when he was stationed there in the war, on a tiny street in the St- Sulpice neighborhood. Madame Desssart was white-haired and portly and always had a cigarette dangling from her mouth, even when she was chasing my hoop down the street.
I would never have solved M(RISC)ANNER. Just biffed it in when I had some crossers.
Is there anybody on this blog who’s ever heard of the peplum film Rome against Rome?
I will never forgive either Merchant or Ivory for the bit in Howard’s End where Helen’s fantasy about a symphony and goblins becomes a ridiculous lecture by a pompous critic (why couldn’t they just have Helen say it?) just nastily making fun of Helen’s imagination.
Thanks to Eileen (yay!!) and Maskarade.
There isn’t a satisfactory answer to the MRI problem. (1,1,1) gives the game away and (3) hides it too well.
Belated delight seeing Eileen’s return to 225 today, we’ve missed you. Every good wish.
Great to see Eileen back, all the best for your recuperation.
I liked the misdirection in 5D, it seems to be a marmite clue.
As someone who hasn’t followed football for nearly 40 years I could still remember that Lazio was a Roman team and AS Roma rang a bell somewhere, so despite never having heard of the film I got there with crossers (after early attempts to find an anagram).
Welcome back Eileen – hope your recovery is thorough and that you’re in good spirits. And thanks for the blog of this enjoyable crossword.
Julian@57, surely the point is that both teams hail from the Eternal City so nit picking over the actual names is rather pointless, after all Lazio doesn’t mention Rome either. Were the clue to reference Arsenal v Chelsea could this not be described as “London against London”? Also because you have never heard of the film doesn’t make it a poor clue or inherently unfair, I am sure we all often come up against Jorums in our daily struggle with the setters.
Anyhow, great to see you back Eileen and thanks as always to you for the blog and Maskerade for the puzzle.
gladys #67 cat scanner can also fit 111. Of course won’t fit the cluing.
Very good to see you are back Eileen!
Defeated by three clues (including the elusive film), but very happy with this crossword. Interesting to note that we could always shorten our worries to just WOES! Excellent clue for SPOILT BRAT, which was only solvable after correcting my original bulk order to TALL ORDER. And a whole handful of other fun clues, too numerous to note.
Best wishes to you, Eileen, and hope all goes well for you.
Another who is very glad to see you are recovering and back blogging.
Some strange criticisms going on here. Santa riding a sleigh is neither here nor there: the point is he’d move cautiously on a SLEDGE!
And the clue for INXS not being cryptic when the band’s name is a play on words! Extraordinary.
This average football supporter kbew that Lazio play in Rome, so I got the obscure movie, but MRI escaped me.
Thanks to Maskarade.
Hello again, Eileen. Lovely to see you again.
Thanks Eileen and welcome back…
GK, general crossword wordplay and ignorance (OLEANDERS, the French Inn, electroconvulsive therapy, APOSTATE), so a DNF for me.
Thanks M.
A bit write-inny for Wednesday but I did enjoy LEEWAY which held out a while longer.
Thanks, Maskers. Great to see you back, Eileen!!
Loren ipsum @64. I just use the puzzles section of the Guardian app. I do actually read the news, so I don’t mind seeing a few headlines, but the exposure can be kept to a minimum if you prefer. It doesn’t show a live timer like the one in The Times’s app, but I don’t like that anyway (or their weird close-up view). However, when I click the button to say I’ve finished, it tells me how long I took. Accuracy goes out of the window if I stop for a while and complete the puzzle later in the day. The results I trust this year have ranged from around 20 minutes to well beyond 2½ hours (Pangakupu on a bad day, one particular Paul and maybe a Vlad prize too).
Roz@52 I am a big fan of Exhume as I believe a former Tory PM is.
Welcome back Eileen! Thanks Maskarade
A DNF – I’ve never heard of INXS. I’ve also never heard of ROME AGAINST ROME, but I did know that both football teams played there.
[Very late to the party today after a rather hectic few hours. Nothing much to say about the puzzle (although I am all too familiar with MRI SCANS), but I am pleased to see you back in action, Eileen. That must have been quite a health scare; I hope you are or w.ill soon be entirely clear of it.]
I thought Maskerade was a combination of setters for extended puzzles. Surprisingly straightforward.
AD @ 83
Maskarade (sic) is Tom Johnson.
Welcome back, Eileen. That you are fit enough to post a blog by eight o’clock in the morning is very good news.
Welcome back Eileen. Your kindness when I first dared to post here was very gratifying.
I’m very glad to see you posting again.
Knew the Aussie band. There are only two, right? Men at Work and Hutchence’s ensemble.
Also knew that Rome is in the region of Lazio (and that Gazza played there) and that AS Roma played in Rome, of course. Didn’t matter that I’ve never heard of the movie.
Should have got MRI Scanner. But I didn’t. Feel that was my fault, not the setter’s.
Hearty welcome back Eileen, we missed you so many thanks are due to your team
of subs too. Great blog as ever.
May your recovery continue apace and be as comfortable as it can be.
Welcome back Eileen. Like MCourtney@86, I am here because of your kindness.
Alan#34 was right – the main clue was superb. LAZIO AGAINST ROMA is the intensest of all capital derbies and sometimes descends to horror. In 1979 a rocket from the Roma end penetrated the eye of Vincenzo Paparelli at the other, killing him. In later years Roma fans would sometimes, to madden their adversaries, lugubriously intone Pa-pa-rel-li.
Late coming here but I just want to add to the chorus of how wonderful it is to see you here again, Eileen, and wishing you well for your recovery.
I left 4d, but forgot to come back to it. Seems I didn’t miss much.
Is the rivalry to which Roz refers greater than that between AC Milan and DC Milan, I wonder?
Great blog as ever, thanks, Eileen.
Having read the super blog I’ve just realised just how much of the puzzle I have not actually understood, but guessed.
Great crossword and lovely to see Eileen’s name again.
Not sure why people are criticising RISC as a homophone for risk. In computing the acronym RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) is usually pronounced as risk.
I really liked 16a and a lot of others in this grid.
Very enjoyable puzzle so thanks Maskarade and thanks Eileen for the blog.
Too late to comment but that’s OK, as the right person will see this. Although I’m not a setter I couldn’t resist:
Eva, our favourite blogger (7,4,6)
So good to see you back.
As always an enjoyable blog to read.
Thanks Eileen and Maskarade.
Eileen, welcome back and hope you’re doing well.
Hope this post isn’t too late for you catch it 🙂
Thanks also to Maskarade for another enjoyable puzzle 🙂
Thanks Eileen for explanations & Maskarade for an enjoyable crossword. Had to reveal 14 Across despite coming from a SEAFARING family – believe me I tried!; 14 down – I thought it was a Font, as well as 17 Down – was trying fit in atheist.
This crossword saved the day as I found Harpo’s Quiptic today completely inaccessible.