Mark Dunn

Killing me Softly, The Fugees

Congratulations, don’t let Sisko know you’re taking time off from your day job!

As well as giving me a better appreciation of the art of the setter ❤️

I’ll get there in the end but this conversation demonstrates why I’m a solver not a setter!

Sensible, for example, when I wear brown under hat (7)

Sensible top, thanks India! (7)

I’ve seen that kind of disguise in clues before, but yes it doesn’t seem entirely fair!

Two attorneys general backing crazy lady (4)

Happy to lend an ear if you’re ever in town and want to unload.

Matthew, I’m so sorry. I promise you it gets easier.

The Right Rhymes A Hip-Hop Dictionary

Do you know Matt Kohl? Don’t know if he’s on here but he built www.therightrhymes.com and was a lexicographer to boot!

Haven’t parsed all the clues but celebrating my progress so far with some Elgar 😉

A bit late for that but I will take responsibility for my actions, even 34 years ago 😬

Less of an issue for us as our son was already maybe 14 before smartphones became ubiquitous. We take the piss out of each other if we get distracted by the phone. I always try to be an example of using the phone as a tool and not a companion/source of entertainment.

Now 136. Slightly horrified that my juvenile witterings are available online! 😱

Ah I think I see what it must be. Got stuck on "neck" as an obvious fit for part of it.
That was fun! The emergence of the theme was a nice aha moment.

Done it apart from the middle cell. I have a tentative idea of what to put there. Perhaps if I stick my neck out you might tell me if I’m heading in the right direction…

Solved most of it but with a few items I could make no sense of. Then realised I’d failed to read the second paragraph of the preamble and finally it made sense!

OK, I've not by any means completed this, but got the confrontational strategy and the aptly placed/modified answers (nice!).
Not been able to parse all the clues, and the "unexpected extra" eludes me.
But a fun challenge, you can't win them all!

I wasn’t able to get into it at my first look. I’ll have another stab at it 🤞

The Inquisitor today is a masterpiece!

Did he have a warful wedded life?

Cool! I'm guessing "eventually" means I will need to replace my old gas boiler while we wait.

Paging @annarailton.bsky.social , is this district heating? And could it be extended to housing in Oxford?

Many happy returns! TPTV has perfectly filled the British thrillers of the 1950s-shaped hole in my life.

BBC Sport headline: “Sinner meets newly elected Pope at Vatican”

He’s going to struggle to get through all the sinners if he meets them one at a time.

Ha ha they got carried away when they repainted the wall!

Speaking as a Balliol man, I think he’d have been at Christ Church, or All Souls as a postgraduate.
All Souls owns a hill near Oxford where witches may have been active. We used to go there every Walpurgis night at midnight but never saw them.

Thanks, this arrived just in time for the visit of a friend with whom I learned to do barred crosswords many years ago. Took us slightly more than four and a half minutes to solve it. Actually there’s still one clue we’ve not solved. Will you be sending the answers next month?

Raises hand tentatively. I’m not at the level of the folks on fifteensquared but happy to give it a go if you’re not on a very tight deadline. (I.e. it might take me a couple of weeks to get anywhere!)