Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Finally finished by getting 19. Quite a good clue!

I'm glad you got it sorted Geeker, I liked 19d too - quite original.

I can't help feeling that Paul should have been the Prize with his highly entertaining offering yesterday, rather than this tricky but rather pedestrian puzzle from Nutmeg.

Morning all,
While I’m familiar with the meaning in 4d I probably haven’t heard it used since early episodes of The Sweeney or Minder! Remember those?
1d has a rare use of cast. Not sure what the question mark is doing there.
6d is new to me as was the rebel in 12a, but I enjoyed reading about him.
Took me a while to parse 20a but I liked it, again except for the unnecessary question mark.
Final pedantic moan, shouldn’t oddly in 26a really be evenly?
Otherwise I thought is was ok but not the best of recent prizes.
Agree with bigmacsub regarding yesterday’s ingenious offering from Paul!

Re 26a, 'oddly struck' is fine (as in struck out/off).

Re 4d, I'm sure I recall John Lennon using it in the plural - possibly in the film A Hard Day's Night? I always associate it with his part of the UK.

The rebel and the cast are quite common in crosswords, I think.

Two I'm not sure about - 11a I can see parts of it but not how it's put together. 25 How does the "Dear" fit in?
(Of course, it's possible I've got them wrong!)

I liked the "drunken announcement" in 1a. 26 was nice, but a bit GKy.

Hi Chris,

11a - 3 letter word and 2 letter exclamation thrown back.

25 - definition

Oh thanks simond9x you’re completely correct about oddly struck, I missed that

Thanks simond9x
Odd definition for 11! I did have 25 wrong.

I made the same mistake with 25, I expect many will