i Cryptic Crossword 2018 Scorpion
July 27, 2017
A little on the challenging side, I thought, though I am a little under the weather at the moment so that could be to blame. Especially given how long it took me to spot the hidden clue. There’s a theme, which I totally missed – thinking we were on our way to a pangram – of double letters in each of the clues, which I wish I’d spotted because it would have made life much easier. 10ac I knew thanks to this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddbnr-YjmMY, 23ac thanks to the local library when I was young. 15ac I didn’t.
COD? 25ac – ‘Stick at shaving facial hair (6)’.
To March 2013 once more:
Borodin
batarde
Saboteur
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
willow1235
idothei 
As usual I missed the double letters. Made a brisk start with 6,9,10 and 11 going straight in then ground to a bit of a halt, unfortunately Napoli for 6ac seemed perfectly reasonable but of course it was wrong. Got there in the end though with a few tuts and groans but generally mostly good.
Yep, I confidently wrote in Napoli as well. Only the distinct lack of any suitable country to fill the down put me right. Eventually.
Without wishing to teach grandmother etc., ‘very quiet’, when p is involved should only ever be double. Mind you, I considered Napoli!
For me this was a perfect puzzle. I missed the ‘theme’ but no matter – what I liked was the level of challenge; this sounds like nonsense but the easiest clues were hard and the hardest clues were easy (well, I know what I mean). Nothing was a gimme and nothing was inaccessible with a little thought.
Puzzle of the week or more for me!
Ground to a halt in the SW corner. Also didn’t spot the double letters which would have helped with 19a and 25a. New word: sash saw.
I would have enjoyed this all the more without a hyperactive toddler in the vicinity, hurling Lego hither and thither. Not a permanent situation, thank goodness. Anyway, Scorpion’s style is very much my cup of tea, and this puzzle was splendid throughout. Bravo.