I made a meal of this, finishing in 47 minutes, not helped by putting 'replied' for REACTED initially and then, at the end, writing 'impessario' in my grid.

Nothing else to say, except to welcome Jerry down from the ether of the Club Monthly, a puzzle where I not only do not understand the clues, I don't get the answers either! Your parsing of OUT is surely right.

Edited at 2012-01-11 01:36 am (UTC)

...I had gotten most of this in 10 minutes. But then I hit a bit of a wall, and limped home in 25. I had forgotten the UK meaning of OAP, which didn't help, but the whole NE was difficult for me.

I did like the golf theme of 'Wedgwood'.

40 minutes with the last 10 spent on ORGAN STOP, WEDGWOOD, CROSIER (I thought it was Z too, Jerry) and PROXIMATE (also didn't realise mate is an officer). I had some problems parsing 16dn but got there in the end.

Yes, welcome to a regular weekly slot, Jerry. I also can't get anywhere with the monthly puzzles and after blogging those I expect you will find things relatively straightforward here most of the time.

Edited at 2012-01-11 06:16 am (UTC)

Blast! Nice crossword, held up by my last (SEPTUAGENARIAN), thinking it to be a straight anagram of the first 3 words, then realised that they didn't contain an 'R'. A quick re-think, then bunged in the now obvious answer at just under 20 min - incorrectly, taking out two other perfectly good acrosses in the process. Ah well, with fair winds and following seas I shall be joining that elite fraternity later this year (just after Jimbo), and who knows, may finally get to grips with the "More haste ..." aphorism.

38 minutes with at least 8 spent on PROXIMATE. The only thing I knew for sure is that it couldn't possibly have an X in it. I'll give it my COD and agree with Jerry on the overall standard of the clues. Welcome to the daily pages, Jerry.

Maybe so, but it hasn't got Susannah Hoffs in it. I know which I'd rather watch.

Welcome Jerry. Like you George and I are accustomed to writing complicated blogs that we have time to sweat over. You'll find the daily puzzle blog generates rather more adrenalin because of the time pressures - but it's also more fun!

This setter must be of a certain age. Apart from the obvious hint at 6D we have Rudolph Valentino for goodness sake and Barbara Castle one of the few people who has managed to vote "for" one week and "against" the following week on union reform. She also contrived with another clown, Keith Joseph, to turn pension provision into a political football - a fate from which it has never recovered and the results of which we are still suffering

As to the puzzle - rather easy I thought and solved in 15 minutes

We had ABSINTH-with-an-E just 11 crosswords ago, so it's not been away all that long.
15 minutes today, pleasant and tidy enough. Hold-ups on BC, where my letter count didn't make COLUMBIA fit, and CITIZEN'S ARREST, for no reason than that it was a CD, and I needed to write the crossing letters (all of them) horizontally before seeing it. Do others sometimes find that, with the really long ones, the more crossers you get the less obvious it becomes?
Decent and very even set of clues doesn't allow for a standout CoD.

Ouch. W went in fast, E much more slowly for 27 minutes. I too was held up by 'replied'. 5 reminded me of a bawdy song about the quarter-master's stores we used to sing at boarding-school, filtered down no doubt from older brothers who would have been the last to do National Service. Not much help to serious solving, to have that merrily blathering away in one's head.

'...I cannot see...' It sure would. Infinite number of verses. Them were the days.

Congratulations, and thanks, jerry for your first blog. I took a bit longer (about 20 minutes) but utterly agree with all your sentiments and comments. A very enjoyable start to the day. Joint CODs: PROXIMATE and CITIZENS ARREST (my LOIs) - both elegantly and succinctly clued.

After spending most of the evening getting not very far at all with Sunday's puzzle, this came as a welcome relief. 33 minutes, which should have been under 20 but I panicked over the last three answers in the far NW. Nice puzzle though, and well done to our blogger Jerry - I like the lower case style, very contemporary.

A very enjoyable 15:38, probably the most "fun" crossword we've had for a few weeks.

I'm not sure I'd have been able to spell the septua- word cold if pressed and the shortened versions of the drink and the geometric shape were barely familiar. The port, screen and staff were dragged up from the murky depths of somewhere.

Thanks to setter and blogger alike (Jerry not least for the Bangles link).

Nice blog Jerry, but you've got a bit mixed up with the numbering for the down clues.

I thought 15dn was outstanding.

9:16 for what seemed like a much more traditional daily puzzle; concise is the word which sprang to mind. Valentino is somewhat old-fashioned but hardly forgotten (one of my favourite songs of the 90s is Lenny Valentino* by The Auteurs**, which demonstrates that he has never been totally abandoned as a cultural icon by later generations). So, not an obvious choice of name to epitomise a heart throb, but perfectly fair. He's no Beerbohm Tree, anyway.

I also couldn't put my finger on the parsing of "out" but I think you have it there, Jerry.

*a imagined mixing up of the public perception of Lenny Bruce and Rudolph Valentino
**a popular beat combo of the Britpop era, m'lud


Edited at 2012-01-11 01:25 pm (UTC)

This was as easy as it ever gets for me. 15 minutes. Which is almost as fast as I can read the clues and write in the answers. (I have an eye condition and can't make out the numbers in the grid - I have to count down from the top each time) It must have been a wavelength thing this morning, which doesn't happen very often. Haven't heard "The Quartermaster's Stores" for years. I have fond memories of singalongs at the back of the bus on school outings.

About 9 minutes for all but IMPRESSARIO and OUTWARD which then took another 6 or so. But all spoiled by a typo at an intersection. Agree that this is a really nice example of an easier puzzle.

Thank you, jerry, and welcome to the Daily Show.

I find I often have similar experiences with the puzzle as Vinyl reports ahead of me, and it's the same today. I didn't recognize the OAP's in 6D until I had all the crossing letters, so it was my last entry, about 25 minutes altogether. Thanks to Jerry, but with a 12 minute solve your mood should be better than anxious, I'd think. More like smugly satisfied. Regards to all.

I breezed through most of this, but as usual the last four entries held me up (CITIZEN'S ARREST, WEDGWOOD, ORGAN STOP and as the very last, PROXIMATE --- good thing I didn't stick with PROPINATE, whatever that might be). Still, only 38 minutes in all, very near my best time. Some of the clues were painfully easy, but maybe I am just getting better at wordplayese.

Edited at 2012-01-11 07:04 pm (UTC)

12 very enjoyableminutes for me. Thanks to Jerry - I know from experience that it's a lot more more nerve wracking blogging 'on the day' than it is reviewing a weekend puzzle.

Just over 12 minutes here. It's all been said: few unknowns, nice puzzle, wouldn't have been able to spell septawotsit without checkers.
I only really know of Valentino from the Bangles song.

Welcome to the daily rotation, Jerry! Didn't get to this until later in the day, but it all came together pretty readily. Needed the wordplay for AQABA.

Thanks to everyone for the very friendly welcome.

I think my time must have been affected by the adrenalin Jimbo mentioned!

6:31 here for another straightforward, enjoyable puzzle.

When I say that the fast brigade ought to be able to post some decent times with this one, what I mean is that someone with the right combination of youth and experience, who didn't stick on some easy clues in the way I did (deep sigh!), could well complete it in 4 minutes or so.

Gosh,Tony. 6 mins and postulating even better! I was pleased to break 30 at 27.41 this time. First time under the half hour mark in 2012 so that's progress I guess. I agree with the smoothness of the surface comments earlier. There was a pleasing elegance about this. My COD to WEDGEWOOD for the multiple golf references. Thanks as ever for the helpful blog.