...you have ever actually given a time. I took a little bit longer than that, as I loafed over this puzzle for a bit, taking a while to chew over the NE, where I nearly put 'washtub'. But my last in was 'Acre', a correction of the obviously wrong 'Agra'.

The two senses of 'groom' are due to an intersting assimilation. It was originally the bride's guma, the woman's man, where 'guma' is cognate with Latin 'homo'. When 'guma', and for that matter 'haleth' and 'beorn', dropped out of the language, they didn't know what to make of 'brideguma', and assimilated it to 'groom'.

I agree entirely. Although the site is called Times for the Times, which suggests speed is of the essence, on the few occasions that I have finished in half an hour or so I feel somehow cheated, that I have not been intellectually challenged and a soft boiled egg would definitely not be enjoyed if ever I were to enter that realm.

I solved all but four clues in 30 minutes but needed another 13 to complete the grid. The literals were somewhat easier than the wordplay in several cases and I didn't fathom how PRESS RELEASE worked having taken 'relief' to clue the whole second word leaving me with 'on pound' surplus to requirements.

UNPOETIC was my LOI. I think REPEATER may have given more trouble had it not turned up only a couple of days ago.

Undone, as so often, by my carelessness. 22:27 but with IDOLATOR - a rookie mistake (if only I were a rookie).

Like vinyl1, I thought I had come to the wrong blog when I saw a time from Uncle Yap. Whatever next? Demands from Jimbo for more dead poets?

After 22', I had everything but 10ac, of all things, which I stared at for another 4 or so before deciding the hell with it. I'm a native, but of the wrong sort, so I hope someone of a British persuasion will explain the homophony involved in TRACHEA. 27ac takes a poor form of clue--"choose among E,N,S,W"--and goes one worse, with 3 E's of which only one is a 'point'.

Thanks, Jack. It's as I suspected, then; but as the US pronunciation is TRAY-kia (and the SOED gives that in addition to truh-KEE-uh [the 'uh' being schwa]), I had my doubts.

Edited at 2013-02-07 07:09 am (UTC)

23 minutes. Back to a more normal level of difficulty. Nothing I didn't know for a change.
It took me ages to put in PROFITS: I was sure "head of faculty" was F and couldn't figure out the wordplay, unsurprisingly.
Is A PIECE OF CAKE "not much to eat"? Surely it depends on who's cutting it.

19 minutes, so quicker than yesterday for what it's worth, but I enjoyed this one more: more wit and mischief rather than wordy obfuscation.
Hold ups: LOFT, because the only thing that's above the (loft) room at the top of my house is the roof;
TRACHEA, Because I was deceived into trying to work out what the Aldgate area was, and thinking how unfair that was to those who know not London - the homophone works for me;
REPEATER, because I know "safe" is always "peter" but I was looking for service(clergy)men beginning with R;
LAST NAME, because having just put in HITCHING POST, I thought it was the (bugle) call LAST POST and smith is a job like many others.
CoD to HITCHING POST: a neat piece of credible prose with that touch of wit and mischief.

Edited at 2013-02-07 09:14 am (UTC)

Thank you, Uncle Yap. Your title and intro say it all! I've found a number of recent challenges far too tough and, having been notified that my club subscription isn't being renewed because my credit card had expired, I was beginning to wonder whether to bother to update my details .... Maybe, after today, I will.

I found this a bit of a 25 minute struggle, never seeming to quite gel with the setter. Looking back I can't see anything too difficult so just an off day for me I suspect.

I enjoyed UY's description of meandering all over the place whilst solving and extracting maximum pleasure from the puzzle. Very much my own attitude although somewhat tempered these days.

14:14 for a really entertaining puzzle. Top quality surfaces, among which I thought 15dn was particularly clever.

Not knowing much about theatrical history, I guessed that Loot came after Room at the Top. Accordingly I entered this, thinking that wordplay might give TOOL reversed somehow.
Agree with HITCHING POST as CoD.

Edited at 2013-02-07 11:19 am (UTC)

Found this 23A compared to yesterday’s puzzle. My only major hold-ups were with Unpoetic (needed all the checkers), Universe (took a while to parse) and LOI Acre where I didn’t think of Ace = one for far too long.
Trachea works fine for me and I thought that was a super clue – so too Transact.
24D raised a smile because my Bulgarian colleague’s called Ivan.

The homophone is a suicidal ploy, IMHO: too many subtle variations in pronunciation, and some VERY aggrieved regional speakers popping in from time to time on the various crosswording blogs to air what needs airing. But still, a pretty good puzzle, if easy. Especially when compared with yesterday's verbose number.

28 minutes with bacon sandwich. Thanks setter, and Uncle Yap.

Chris.

Another excellent puzzle, if slightly easier than some recent offerings. About an hour for me. It should have been faster, but I got bogged down in the SW corner for no very good reason. 11 ac - HITCHING POST - was a wonderful surface read. With all due respect to the homonymphobes, I also liked TRACHEA. This is, after all, a British puzzle and I don't think the setter can reasonably be expected to make allowance for every variety of English pronunciation external to these islands. TEA PARTY also a top-notch clue. Thanks to blogger and setter.

59.40 so on the hard side for me - I was fairly steady until I hit the SW corner which took a good 15m to tease out; afterwards it is as always hard to see why. I liked 23a even if this wasn't for me.

Was determined to finish this one after yesterday's, and I did, but it took quite a long time (I too don't give timings... would be FAR too embarrassing...!), and I still managed to get one wrong: the unknown port of ACRE (which I should have got).

Ended with TRANSACT. Managed to get REPEATER easily, having learnt of this firearm from the recent puzzle. Now the challenge is to use it out of Crosswordland...

Nice puzzle, about 45 minutes for me, LOI TRACHEA, because I had been misreading the clue and trying to think of a UK place name. I liked UTOPIA. Regards.

Came to this at 22.00 after a long busy day elsewhere, surprised to finish it in 17 minutes (I'm usually slower in the evenings), an enjoyable puzzle with no dodgy bits and some amusing clues, well done Mr Setter. Special double (triple?) congrats to the surface of 15 ac as Aldgate Tube station was closed some years ago.

I finished this in one sitting, but didn't grab a time. Didn't help myself by putting in ON THE HORIZON for 3 (second read through of the acrosses found CIVIL LAW and I saw the mistake). TRACHEA and UNIVERSE from definition, DADO from wordplay.

If people are even now complaining about the "trach" in "trachea" not sounding like "track" then perhaps the homophone clue really has had its day.
But then again, I've never really understood why some folk get so hot under the choler about such things ...