Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

The air was blue when I finally parsed my last solve, 26. It's a doozy.

The redoubtable Buccaneer aka Picaroon is in tonight's FT, as often happens when Pic. is not in the Prize slot.
I'm puzzled out after my Boatman fiasco, so will save that for tomorrow.

geeker - I love your account of your initial travail and irritation. I had a similar experience once, when (as I recall) the special instructions initially didn’t appear on the app, and after a long struggle I realised that something must be missing and somehow managed to work out what that something was. Or perhaps I just dreamt it…

been at 2: interestingly (yes!) re 6, I did know the definition, having known a few of them in my time, but was held up by the clever surface which made me think for too long that it wasn’t an SI clue but a charade with a one-word definition.
It would be interesting to know what others’ FOI of the SIs was - without the benefit of your hint mine was 18, which may say something subliminal about my preference as between unclued 18s and unclued 27s!

Sorry, that should have read ‘Bren’ at 2, in case anyone was wondering!

Thanks Rog, I do appreciate it, knowing my little asides have been read - it doesn't take much to please me these days😃

6d - I spent way too long thinking "service" must be the 'tennis' kind, even when it continually led nowhere I was loth to give up on it!

Good fun I thought. Sort of half way between a standard prize and the Genius perhaps.

My FOI of the thematics was 21d. And funnily enough 6d was my LOI. I hadn’t heard of the textile designer and initially thought that must be a theme clue until I saw the same theme item elsewhere.

I have 12 thematics, but am I correct that one is somewhat generic and one is in reverse?

No reversals Jono, not in mine anyway. Not fully sure what you mean by generic but each is a specific type of 12

My FOI was 7a, but I raised an eyebrow at “no big characters” which isn’t strictly true, is it?

7a - I see what you mean Jono, didn't notice at the time but you're right - there is still one 'big character'.