i Cryptic Crossword 2158 Hypnos
January 8, 2018
So back to work and school with associated tears and cries of anguish, and that was just me when the alarm went off at 6AM. I’m not sure whether this has completely dulled my cognitive processes, but I found today’s IoS reprint to be a little trickier than anticipated. Finished in a time still under par for the i, but I expected to polish it off a lot quicker than I did. Perhaps not getting the writer at 1ac sooner played a part in this, as did somewhat complicated wordplay here and there, some of which I didn’t get round to untangling. Chief culprits here were the aforementioned 1ac, 22ac and 19ac. The second definition at 18d was a complete mystery to me, and I suspect to the majority of solvers.
A steady, enjoyable start to the week then, that won’t have detained seasoned solvers for too long.
COD? Not too many stood out today, but I’ll go with 7d for the smooth surface – “Cream from Spain low in calories (5)”.
We return to the Autumn of 2013:
http://www.fifteensquared.net/2013/09/29/independent-on-sunday-1231-by-hypnos/
Borodin
batarde
Saboteur
Denzo
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
willow1235
idothei 
I didn’t wake up until 8.30☺ and I found it a bit tricky too. LOI was 21dn where for some reason I completely missed the second line of the clue which didn’t help, this coupled with authors, politicians, shops and whatever 18dn is caused a fair bit of head scratching. 24dn amused, a clue with Blair in it gives an answer starting with A War hmm.
It was probably much later than 8:30 that I could actually describe myself as being awake, despite much coffee. 🙂
Not an obvious choice for the Monday slot, surely? Can’t pretend that I was terribly taken with this puzzle, although there were some good clues in there. 8d emphatically wasn’t one of them, and provoked a disapproving harrumph. As did 18d, although for goodness knows what reason the second definition was familiar – hardly fair to expect it of the solver though. Curate’s egg.
Didn’t have much time or mojo to tackle this yesterday. Got to about half done around bedtime and have just finished it this morning (today’s will turn up soon) … Agreed it was tricky, more so in the top half than the bottom (mostly because it took me ages to get the writer at 1ac).
A puzzle where the best clue has the execrable ‘word’ LITE in it. Hrrmph. Not Hypnos at his best, alas.
Ran out of time. 4 – 2