Spectator 1908

[greyfox]

'Dear heart' by Muso (is s/he new?) this week:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article_assets/arti cledir_7011/3505836/crossword.pdf

With love from,

greyfox

[kayakamina]

Thanks for the link greyfox.

I was expecting an April Fool theme!

[slaney]

This looks interesting!
Thanks greyfox .

[Spaghetti]

Morning, greyfox, and thanks for the link. Not quite as challenging as some, but enjoyable.

I noticed that I won first prize 2 or 3 weeks ago, but no sign of the thirty quid yet. Does anyone know how long it takes them to cough up?

[kayakamina]

You should note that the unclued words total 54 letters not 57 given in the preamble

[cruciverbals]

Won a few times, takea up to a month.

[kayakamina]

Scrub my previous comment I omitted 18a!

[slaney]

Hi Spaghetti - it can take up to six weeks.
.
Good morning K ..I make it a total of 57 letters, 55 in the grid.

[Christiana]

Thanks for the link, though as usual won't be able to get to it for a day or two.

[mad max]

Many thanks for link

[Mysterons]

Although the 'post-amble' says allow 6 weeks, in practice cruciverbals experience is more the norm.

[DocHH]

Thank you for the link greyfox. Solved, but the verse was quite a few years before even my parent's era!!

[crucifernz]

WAY TOO easy this one - a new setter? Definite lack of difficult/unusual words as solutions.

[Christiana]

As usual came to this late (yesterday evening) but guessed rhyme straight away so finished quickly.

[This-Is-Muso]

Glad you enjoyed it ... The next one will be a bit harder, now that we're getting to know each other, as it were.

How does everyone feel about out-of-the-ordinary words, anyway? I'm very happy to put in weird vocabulary (it actually makes my life easier, 'cos there are more to choose from!) if you think that's fair.

All best - Muso

[Mysterons]

Enjoyed this one a lot, thanks Muso, but can you confirm, was there an 'old' missing from the preamble's anagram ?

[This-Is-Muso]

A small prize goes to Mysterons for being the first to spot that the preamble should have read "... my amazingly slow old vehicle ...". I'll be shooting the editors later. Perhaps they felt that you needed an extra challenge? Good to see that some of us still check the entire anagram, anyway!

All best - Muso

[crofter]

Like most/all of the regular solvers, if a word is in Chambers (no matter how weird) it is "fair game".

In 12 down, the use of parentheses (designed to mislead?) was a novel twist for me.