Jason

Ok, so I live 4 miles from EPSOM. Although correct that Epsom Salts are known worldwide, it isn’t table salt but Magnesium Sulfate (sulphate in the British spelling) used as a muscle relaxant in a hot bath or as a fertilizer for your plants. I don’t recommend using it on your steak unless you want to spend the night on the loo, due to its’ laxative effects. EPSOM was a spa town in the 1700’s although little remains today. The Assembly Rooms, once a place to Take the Waters.. is now a place to take in cheap beer as it is inhabited by a national pub chain.

This one did me in after 133 days of solving. No blame, not a bad puzzle - just not on the same wavelength with the setter. Didn’t get the Or trick at any point and the clue’s didn’t spring to mind as they normally do. Little sad, but I’ll start again tomorrow. 133 to beat…

I liked the misdirect on Body of water near London. Being in the UK, you sorta Occam’s Razor it in the wrong way and make the assumption that it is the London you know best, which of course it isn’t. (Someone will now point out I have Occam’s Razor all wrong or that it doesn’t apply here, but so be it). By the way, Ockham is about 5 miles from here, and doesn’t have much more notable about it than being the birthplace of that problem solving principle.

Lovely to see my NZ hometown boys (or near as can be - shout out to Te Awamutu from a Hamilton boy!) make the crossword with Split Enz making the cut. Definitely part of my teen years and the forerunner to Crowded house through Neil and Tim Finn. Check out “Six months in a leaky boat” which was banned in the UK as demotivational during the Falklands war…

When I go through all the Across clues and get only one, and not even sure about that, I think I’m in for a long solve. Such was the case today. But in the end it didn’t eventuate. I allow myself to google sports people and obscure cultural refs because I’m not a local (and it’s my game, so my choice!) but if I have to google more than 3, I dump the streak. Today was a 3, so yes it was tough. But a puzzle that I thought was unsolvable on first pass came good in the end. Definitely benefitted from doing it in 2 different sessions. Not sure why that works, but it does for me. Happy weekend, All!

I love the puzzles when at first reading of the across clues (I usually run through these first) the puzzle seems unsolvable to you. On first reading of the acrosses today, I got only 2 off the bat. Looked like it was all over from the start. Then working through the downs, the whole world is slowly revealed and you realise you can do it…. I try to get through the whole week doing all the puzzles on less than 30 minutes per day. Only managed it about 3 times. Today’s beat me by 1 minute 30, but at the beginning today I thought I was toast (no SCHMEAR)! Happy to lose the weekly challenge on such a great puzzle!

This one did me in, streak ended after 201 days, but it was meant to be. Just some things in it I didn’t know and to play my own honest game with myself, would not have got and had to google. So Check Puzzle turned on as I did the last clue, to dump the streak. Back to one, to build my streak POCO-A-POCO. Begin again, Michael Finnegan…

… is that everything’s gonna be fine,fine,fine… … is that I haven’t got it all figured out just yet….

Basically had it done for 10 minutes before I could isolate Flickers and Flamingos cross with Mountaineers School was Avian and not Asian. I don’t know what a flicker is, and WVU is very much local knowledge.

Loved the alignment of the answer for 14 across with the clue for 16 across. Can only be done trying to imitate that voice….

First puzzle I have done that I just didn’t enjoy. Didn’t get the gimmick, not on the same wavelength as the setter. I usually can get aligned but not today. Streak resets, we start again tomorrow

Streak breaker today. Completely off beam with Poison and had sauce instead of paste. And too much trivia I didn’t know. Fair beats, we start again tomorrow

Disappointed because, not knowing the American academic systems and tests I had LOST A BET and GRT (for general reasoning test). In the end I had to give up and lose my streak

I started with Salukis for the hounds with fine silky hair, although perhaps the long hair is limited to the ears and tail on those ones. Didn’t think of Borzois, but got to Afghans in the end…

With your long blonde hair and your eyes of blue, the only thing I ever got from you was SORSORSORSORSOR