37 minutes, with the SE last to fall, held up by the fact I was only taking the ‘head’ letters of ‘overwhelm schools’ and couldn’t account for the ‘trip’. I’m indebted to our Liverstrinian blogger for the parsing of LANDLADY (d'uh!). Toyed with ‘measly’ at 6ac, as I always seem to when MEAGRE is the answer.

For the record, I solved the ‘triple clue’ in the order 20, 27, 1.

I deciphered it as FOP wearing FIT, backwards.

- Vince

I agree with Vince's parsing of 9ac, which was neat, but it seemed to me that the clue could have been better phrased so as to place the def properly at the end in line with convention - i.e. it would have read better ending " ... Needs advice" rather than "...Advice required". But that is a minor quibble about a very enjoyable puzzle.

Re 19a: I too had the same question after getting the answer quickly. I got a satisfactory answer here. Thanks.

Rishi
in Chennai that was Madras, India

50 minutes steady solve for me, never quite feeling on a roll but never stuck either.

I wonder how, to me, 'scanning' has always meant looking at something quickly and its other meaning, to examine closely, has passed me by until this morning. I must have been misunderstanding it in some contexts all these years. For that reason I had taken the definition at 19ac as 'examining...briefly' and noted a breach of the convention that the definition usually goes at the beginning or end of a clue.

Yet again there was apparently no room for the puzzle number in the heading and the over-size message about next week's puzzle has bumped some of the clues onto a second page so that it's necessary to adjust the font size to fit everything on one sheet. Would it really be so difficult to sort this out?

Finished this in just under the hour, which is very fast for me. But it turned out there was on wrong - MANQUE, for which I had put in MANSUR, intending to go back to it, but then forgetting. Oh well, there's always next time. Gradese

34 minutes, but felt longer for some reason, possibly the lack of gimmes and of any fat on the bones of the clues. Very smooth and concise throughout. COD has to be INSOLE, amongst a host of contenders, like PLAY IT COOL, INSOUCIANT, LANDLADY etc, in fact they're all good.

I was equally awry in my thoughts about TIP OFF, wondering how PI meant suit.

Canning was PM just long enough to have the Canning River in Perth named after him, but not the Canning Highway, which crosses the river. The latter is named after the Stock Route and No. 1 Rabbit-Proof Fence man.

I had an off day and struggled with this for 35 minutes. I'm usually good at anagrams but couldn't get any of them for ages. The "briefly" at 19A completely threw me, and so on. A real tale of woe!

Agree with Jack about the printing of the puzzle

Enjoyed this very much with its succinct clues and slightly old-fashioned feel.

GET ALONG is an expression I don’t hear much these days: always associate it with elderly aunts telling off cheeky nephews in the 1950s; whereas the lavatorial humour at 21 reminds me of elderly uncles!

MANQUE is a much sadder word than the definition “unsuccessful” suggests, isn’t it? The idea of unfulfilled potential (I could have been a contender……)

Haven’t had much time to comment recently and have several puzzles still to tackle; so many thanks for the blog and regards to everyone. (35 minutes)

I'm sure no one could ever describe you as a solver manque, Sotira, or even a manque puzzler!

It's just that I associate the word with, say, the fellow who has the talent to become an actor of note but who, through force of circumstances, must content himself with a humdrum career and bit parts with the local dramatic society.

(I was going to specify such a career, but don't want to offend anyone else. And I'm reliably informed by a friend in amateur dramatics that her local society is full of potential Kevin Spaceys!)

"I coulda been a contender" was, of course, first used by me here on April 30th. Brando might have said it before even that, but with the way he mumbles, it's hard to tell.

16 minutes for an elegant puzzle. 11ac put me in mind of Margaret Dumont in Duck Soup telling Groucho Marx that this was a gala day for him (his response, obviously, was that a gal a day ought to be enough for any man).

Enjoyable, sub-30 minute solve (will I ever again be quicker than jimbo?) but without understanding the full wordplay for MANQUE and AT HOME until coming here. So particular thanks for the blog, mctext. Briefly held up by (i) failing to appreciate that HOG = 'wild pig' (for me, its normal use is for the castrated, domesticated boar) so was looking for an anagram of 'pig' in the middle of the word; and (ii) for me, CHA (or CHAI) = tea/drink and CHAR = daily/housemaid.

18 minutes on this, mildly distracted by the note at the foot of my paper copy which proudly proclaims the qualifying puzzle no. 2 (sic) on April 18th. Incompetence is not confined to the online edition.
CHAR went in uneasily, for the same reason given by martifred, and thought like others I was missing something on 19.
While I know the grammar is fine, doesn't "holds ones tongue" just look a bit odd?
CoD to INSOLE for that elegant triple. Getting it meant the first three letters of 1ac fell into plaice and resolved LEILA, which otherwise was running into the could be anything class.

Edited at 2012-05-09 03:37 pm (UTC)

17:27 .. very enjoyable puzzle.

Last in TABLETOP, which I twice considered and twice rejected on the grounds that it did not fit the checking letters. Inexthplicable.

Thank you for the blog, mctext, the title of which made me think of John Major.

Edited at 2012-05-09 12:55 pm (UTC)

....and like Alec, I thought 'tip off' involved 'toff' and wasn't sure it was correct - but then I did see 'fop' in 'fit'. I also wasn't sure of 'gala', which seemed likely enough based on the cryptic, but not the literal. UKism?

I got 'insole' before the other two, and used it to solve them. When I saw '20-1' I just knew it was a cross-ref.

I thought he'd been working as a bookie's runner in Venice.

I came to this after a very long day of repetitive meetings in a foreign city on three hours' sleep, so it's perhaps not surprising that I lost the will to live after half an hour with two clues unsolved. I considered SCANNING but I couldn't quite believe there had ever been a PM called CANNINGS. For the life of me I can't see how I failed to see TABLETOP.
Ah well, tomorrow is another day.

This puzzle was very hard for me to complete, for some reason. But I did finish in the end, without mistakes, so I can be a little proud of myself!

I started with a pretty good pace and managed half the puzzle. Answers were scattered about the grid with difficult crossings everywhere. Like jimbo I struggled with the anagrams... INSOUCIANT was one of my last in, and held up progress in the NE for a long time.

Eventually I put the puzzle down and returned to it a few hours later, and was immediately able to put in 6 or 7 more answers, before getting stuck again. Sometimes I wonder if the extra hour spent to crack the last 2 or 3 clues is worth it...

Done in bits and pieces probably adding up to about half an hour. Several not quite understood (e.g. forgot Edward can be Ned, thought Ed; saw patent as clear-cut not clear) but close enough to be fairly confident. I like Achillean if only for the word.

Yes, I know I'm late, but actually working for a living interfered with my day. About 30 minutes for what I thought was a very good puzzle, especially the INSOLE trick. Very nice. Regards.

12:18 for me - making heavy weather of some easy clues, and not resolving ARCH until after I'd finished (or understanding "briefly" in 19ac until I read this blog).