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I'll keep this short this week (Hurrah! I hear you say)

Unfortunately I came home Thursday evening to a flooded flat and, after unsuccessful attempts by different 2 different sets of plumbers to unblock it, it was finally fixed the following evening by a couple of drainage engineers. Thankfully there's only four floors in my block of flats, of which I live on the third, and the new upstairs neighbours were very understanding and agreed not to use their bathroom sink until the blockage was cleared.

Anyway - the crossword....

I thought it was quite fun but, as you can imagine, my mind is a bit frazzled at the moment so I may not be the best judge, so I'll wait to hear what others think.

How dreadful Brendan, water causes such a mess - no wonder you are distracted. x



Crossword, an easyish one really ,unless you get carried away like me and write things in without reading the clue properly.

Hi Mamya,

If it was just water that would be bad enough, but, if you imagine (and I don't recommend it), what sort of 'substances' people put down the basins in their bathroom you'll appreciate my predicament more fully. The carpets in the hallway, bedroom and living room were all drenched when I got home and so I'm wondering if I'm living in a health hazard zone. I've already thrown out 3 extra large bin liners worth of stuff and I feel I've barely scratched the surface:-(

My first post here and sorry to hear of your woes Brendan. I normally look at the crossword in the morning but thought that I would give it a go before bed and have finished so obviously not too taxing this week. The north south link is very obvious but I am struggling to see an east west one.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the many other contributors to this forum who have helped in my developing understanding of the the art of crossword solving over the past months.

That's very kind of you Nige and welcome to the Forum - don't be a stranger 😄

Hello, Brendan,
That's a right calamity you came home to!
Hope you can get back to normality fairly soon.

Hi Brendan,

That seems like a rubbish week. I do hope you had 26ac! In the spirit of 17d, I suggest you put the week behind you by putting on some 24ac and indulging in a 10ac, or maybe go for the full 25ac. I know I would 1ac!

Remember too that it could have been worse - you could have been a 2d in 21d almost exactly 3 years ago. Now that was seriously wet.

At least you can 9ac this forum to look on the bright side. 😉🙂

1ac reminded me of this Roger McGough peom
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZObjOCIagdkC&pg=PT23&lpg=PT23&dq=grandad+hat+railings&source=bl&ots=7Y4_NZi3em&sig=ACfU3U0MgLhkU6ZBQAQLcp2codxGcN6Xjw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjOz7Pkj4flAhXRiFwKHVczDXcQ6AEwDXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=grandad%20hat%20railings&f=false

Sorry to hear about your problem, brendan. When our daughter was young and we were in a rented house, when we let the bathwater out one day the carpet tiles in the living room floated off. The drain was blocked by nappy-liners!

Oh Brendan, what an awful situation for you. I hope you are on dry land very soon .

RichardK's post is brilliant !

Hi Brendan
May I add my sympathy -- I guess you wouldn't describe your flat as 12A at the moment, but it'll dry out eventually and carpet cleaners are amazing things these days, which hopefully will address the, err, 'other substances'.
Re the puzzle, the usual mixed bag, I thought. Too many anagrams, possibly, and one or two dubious clues (13A, recipe = r?) but a fair few imaginative ones, too. And, as ever, nice to see an &lit put in an appearance right at the very end (in the order I solved it, anyway).