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A very easy grid-fill, but I'm stumped on the quote around the perimeter. The fairly obvious, and unusual, word early in the quote does not appear in the index of ODQ, so I await enlightenment.

I also dislike words that aren't in Chambers ie 25d, in ODE.

Help on either account appreciated.

The quote is from a well-known poem by Betjeman, all about the person who is named in 1 across and described very specifically in the clue to 1 across.

I thought the wordplay for 25d was specific enough to pinpoint the unchecked letter, without the need to look in a dictionary.

I’m down to one clue not yet solved, after which I’ll have to search out the redundant words to get the phrase. The clues lately have been either very obscure or absurdly easy. Surely the editors should know that and make some adjustments to mitigate the problem.

I cannot download this puzzle from the Times site, which annoys me since I have doubled my fee to do so. If anyone is able to let me have a pdf of this puzzle, I will give them an address to sent it to.

All done now. I had made an erroneous assumption about the second word of the quote.

Agreed about 25d- now it's solved, I can reverse engineer to see it, as so often!

I also agree about the variability of the difficulty each week - some themes seem beyond obscure, this one fell out very simply. Perhaps part of the charm of the puzzle is that we don't know, until Friday, or Saturday, comes along!

I thought this was a bit too entry-level after some superb puzzles recently. First one in was 1 across, and that gave the game away (1 across + poet + game), and took me back to English O Level classes in the 70s. It took me longer to unscramble the letters for the phrase beneath the grid than to fill the grid itself. Still, pleasant enough. And nice to see a thread starting without that pious "May Contain Answers" guff.

Crucifer, I don't always do the Listener - but I am, technically, responsible for the 'pious' thread. That was done with the full approval of the site's administrators, following a rather tumultuous period. There was a poster who often gave answers, frequently quite a lot of answers, totally unprompted - and this wasn't appreciated by many regular solvers. There used to be a Listener thread and I'd add a 'Listener, May Contain Answers' thread.

Yes Malone, I remember that particularly irritating poster, but he seems to have disappeared. Most contributors to this thread are no more incontinent than those to threads on, say , the EV or the IQ, so why does the Listener thread need special treatment?

foinaven - email address?

... or you can email me at rbs@cormanser.com.

Filled the grid. Got the quote and the phrase, but can't fit to eight halves. are there 4 across and 4 down?