I had 14 as a triple, 'word' being the third.

Great puzzle with bits of chew combined with very few giveaways (10ac, 27ac, 16dn, 20dn?). So very well balanced I thought. For the desperate, there was always the fact that the four 7-letter answers had the potential to have 5 squares pre-filled. Such is the “4-C” grid which must always put setters on the alert for that possibility.

The (not) reversal mis-direction at 21ac was excellent, sending those of us without 15dn looking for S_U_, meaning “vulgar”. And 15dn wasn’t easy. Good construction there.

Re 4dn: the KEEL OVER device (cf “cagophilist”?) was much appreciated. That scene in the final act of Henry V is tremendous, if only for the line “Not for Cadwallader and all his goats”. But why does Shakespeare seem to think that Welshmen substitute “p” for “b”? Could Fluellen become an excuse for p-b replacements in future?

My only query is the “used by” bit of 25ac. That seems like padding to make the surface syntax work.

But then there's the parsing of 9ac, where "about single" seems to signal the inclusion of "I" in O, MISS, ON. And that would make "persistently yattering"=ON. Maybe I'm missing something here?


COD to SCHOOLMARM for the choo-choo device!

But then we have to consider how the "I" (single) is shown to be included in O,MISS,ON. And that exclues the "about" from "on about"? Maybe I'm just being as stupid ... as usual.

Spent about 5 minutes mulling the possibilities for 4D, my LOI. Didn't know either the character or the wordplay so will have to put this one down to blind luck. I often find myself caught out by (or in blissful ignorance of) unusual devices in an otherwise vanilla puzzle - see 14A also. COD to LOTUS-EATER for its brevity.

23 minutes. I'm not known for my appreciation of vanilla - it always seemed to be ice cream's poor relation - but I quite liked this one. LEEK had a fine pdm, and UNSEEMLY needed some work to realise that enemy, and not just its last, was part of the anagrist. The triple at 14 was pleasing, as was the insertion device at 25.
Maybe I'm just slowing down, but it took me a while to twig the choo choo in 22: still in use with my grandchildren even though very few trains still do it. Is SEMOLINA still in use?

I enjoyed this greatly, even though it took me 80 minutes. LOUD was particularly cunning, I thought (especially with the 'up'), and 'persistently yattering' translating into another 2-letter preposition was first class as well as, arguably, upper class. But my standouts were LEEK and DIDGERIDOO, surpassed only by the superb SCHOOLMARM.

Edited at 2013-01-22 02:25 pm (UTC)

19 minutes with a typo somewhere which I can't see. Jimbo is right about the flavour here. "What is the matter with Mary Jane, it's lovely rice pudding for dinner again."

I solved all of this except 4dn in about 9 minutes. Most of the answers went straight in from the definition.
I then wasted the next 7 minutes trying to work out why 4dn was LEEK. I remembered that leeks feature prominently in Henry V, and it seemed perfectly plausible that the relevant character was called Fluellen, but I wasn't sure. In the end I gave up trying to figure out what "suddenly collapse" was doing in the clue and bunged it in.
"Shaw" for wood caught me out badly last time it appeared. I would probably have remembered it this time if I'd needed the knowledge to get the answer from GOSH_W_ and "bird".

Managed all but 4dn (Fluellen? Never 'eard of her/him!), 21ac (should've got that one) and 15dn (unknown vocab, but gettable...). Hadn't worked out wp for 22ac or 25ac, so thanks for those explanations.

I expected a struggle after 5 blank minutes and was not disappointed eventually coming in at 47.23 but at least all correct today. Thanks for blog, Jimbo; as entertaining as ever and though I knew LEEK and Fluellen connection I had no idea how suddenly collapse worked. I must also confess to not seeing the choo-choo in 22a either. SEMOLINA was still a regular on the school menu in the 60s too - and I loathed it! There were some fine clues in this puzzle I thought and my COD vote goes to 21a which kept me puzzled for far longer than it should.

I can't really declare a time. Similar experience to keriothe: I had it all solved in 15 minutes but I had no clue why LEEK was right, even though I felt sure it had to be. I spent about 8 or 9 minutes thinking about it before Googling "Fluellen leeks". I was actually reading part of Henry V last week but didn't encounter Fluellen. The 'keel over' thing should really should have been enough but I just couldn't see it.

I thought this was a terrific puzzle, and every clue fitting on one line! (I do love economy)

I think the question mark is supposed to cover the slight dodginess of "keel over". I can see your point though.
I'm with you on "persistently yattering": a bit of a liberty, unless we're all missing something.

Personally, I love 'keel over'. I saw it the moment I looked up the Fluellen reference. I didn't know the character but the spelling of the name ought to have been enough to make an educated guess. Seems fair to me.

The disembodied 'on', on the other hand... yeah, bit of a stretch.

I think the question mark is supposed to go with the whole thing, but I take your point.

....and my time was quite slow at 75 minutes. I struggled with cryptics like 'footslog' and 'omission', but finally saw them. Even the anagrams were tough, as I had the correct analysis for 'ponytail' and 'Lotus eaters' and still took ages to see them.

Like Keriothe, I solved this all fairly quickly (16 minutes) and gave up trying to work out what LEEK had to do with Fluellen as we had to leave for a hospital appointment.

Sounds like I had a similar experience to most - 17 minutes, but the last five of them trying to figure out if anything other than LEEK made sense at 4 down. SHALLOT from definition, GOSHAWK from wordplay.

Slow start, finished in 35 minutes, but had lazily spelt DIGGERIDOO wrongly, not DIDG... twigged and written in too fast as LOI as soon as I saw it ended in 'O'. Otherwise a clever and enjoyable struggle. Silly mistake, because my son came back from a year in Oz with several large didgeridoos and an ability to extract something vaguely resembling music from them. But had I seen it spelt before?

Falling asleep with tiredness but got round in 50 minutes. Liked the blog. 'kids' in 7 is a litle odd - a bit too particular if it's that any noun will do. Otherwise a satisfying offering, roughly to me now what semolina was at school lunch in the 'fifties, something with its own tang of delight. Not now, not now.

Shakespeare wasn't very good at Welsh, and Fluellen is his attempt at Llewelyn, a well known Welsh name. The national symbol of Wales is the leek -they were worn in the hats of the Welsh in the Battle of Rhuddlan, to distinguish them from the English, and hence won the battle. welsh for leek is Cenin, and for daffodil is Cenin Pedr (St Peter's leek). Just about my first in!

Not keen on "seeing" in 4 down - (seeing the answer?) Hiccup at 15 down because I read "mimic" as a noun - ape - instead of a verb - aper - which looks a bit odd.

13:30 for me. I never really found the setter's wavelength and kept following false trails.

I knew the Fluellen reference but for some reason couldn't decide whether the answer was going to be LEEK or KEEL. (My brain often seems to be a bit addled on a Tuesday. Sigh!)

DNF. Couldn't connect at all. Too bad a score in 30 mins to report.

:-(

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