A few parties in this one, as well as the great Stevie Wonder who wrote the above song. Some penny-dropping moments for me in this one, maybe my brain’s not switched on properly today, or more likely there is some very cunning clueing from Paul.

Across

8 SUBTITLE  SUBT(IT)LE  - sex appeal can be ’it’.

9 AVENUE  A VENUE

10 UKIP  U/KIP  the UK Independence Party

11 HOOTENANNY  HOOT/E/NANNY

14,21 MULTIPLE CHOICE  - MUL(TIP)L/ECHO/ICE - some really tricky wordplay here but I think this is it - think is ’mull’ about clue is ‘tip’ ; hint is ’echo’, ice is cold.

15 ONE-STAR  O(NEST)AR  nest is tree-house, a very clever clue

17 DONATES  DO/NATES   to gift something is to donate and a do is a party, so is ‘nates’ somehow behind?

20 SCENARIO  NORACEIS*

22,12 STEVIE WONDER  STE(VIEW)ONDER* anag of snorted+e (cocaine finally) around (claiming) to see or view. Again it took me a while to see the wordplay here.

23 FOREBODING  FO/RE(BOD)IN/G 

24 FETE  FE(T)E

25 ACTION  ACT(I)ON

26 TOASTING  TO/A/STING  made me laugh!

Down

1 DUCK DOWN  nice double/cryptic def.

2,22 STOP SIGNAL  PAINTSLOGS*

3 ETCHER  ET(C)HER - ether is a number because it numbs!

4 REFORMS  RE/FORMS

5 WATERLOO - another sort of double def which is also an &lit

6 DESALINATE - ALEINSTEAD* 

7 TUNNEL  T(UN)NEL  fast is lent upwards around un.

13 DISINHERIT  INSIDE/R/HIT* again the wordplay took me ages for this one - ground is the anag indicator.

16 AIRBORNE  A/ROBINR*/E

18 EXISTENT  EXI(STEN)T

19  SOCIETY  SO/C/IE/TY  the first clue I got and my favourite one of the puzzle. Society is ‘Thatcher’s myth’ because she famously said there was no such thing as society.

If you solved the online puzzle today then this post is going to be of no use to you because, as it says in a note under the printed version of the puzzle: “For technical reasons a different puzzle is online today”. I have no idea what those technical reasons are but the printed grid does have the word OF printed in central square (see the explanation for 15/4 below) and maybe it wasn’t possible to do that in the online version.

If anyone solved the online puzzle and wants to write a post about it, leave a comment to stake your claim. If you’re a regular blogger then go ahead and post as normal; if you’re a commenter then please send it to blogging@fifteensquared.net and I’ll post it for you. Please don’t forget to leave a comment though as this will prevent more than one of you writing about it.

The paper version has a theme of money and greed, as seen in the long answer at 15/4 and at 7,8,22,23,1 and 9. Quite tricky in places (I still don’t understand 10) but rock-solid as ever from Virgilius.

I solved Ac 26, 9, 31, 30, 29, 12, 13, 14 and 28 first before having to move to the Dn set, where I got 1, 3, 5, 25, 24, 23, 22, 18, 20, and the latter half of 19 (…LESS) before I had to ponder for other answers.

Among the last were Ac 1, 4, 10, 11 and 17 and Dn 2, 6, 8, 12 and 16.

I am not sure about 16 Dn - a three-letter word with just the first letter unknown.

The puzzle engaged me for a while. I would say it is of average difficulty. Some of the answers were delayed not because the words were little known but because of the clueing.

Across

1 SESAME - two def. - ref. to a TV serial and to oil - In India we call it gingili oil

4 TRESPASS - tre(spa)ss

9 ICICLE - hidden in “clinIC I CLEan”

10 SCORPION - I see the son ouside but the rest of the wordplay eludes me.

11 CARESS - cares(cocerns),s (son)

12 SERENADE - anag. of ‘dear seen’ - I am not quite happy with this clue. As it is written,

I think “As Romeo does” leads to ’serenades’. For the clue to lead to the answer, I think it

has to be something like “What would Romeo do with dear seen frolicking?” Or “As done

by Romeo with dear seen frolicking”. I don’t know if I have expressed myself clearly.

14 SUNBED - anag. of ‘bend us’ - couch with sunlamps to receive tan

17 SAMPLER - two def

23 TIRADE - The wordplay occurred to me just now! - anag. of ‘diatribe’ after I (one) b

(book) is deleted from it

26 FURNACES - anag. of ‘cafes urn’

27 CAMERA - I didn’t solve this in early stages - With “I” I would expect it to be a person,

not a thing.

28 ABATTOIR - &lit - anag. of ‘boar at it’ - Nice.anag

29 DIGEST - g. s. in ‘diet’ - Good surface reading.

30 RHETORIC - anag. of ‘retro chi’ after deleting c from ‘chic’ - I have attended many

forums where rhetoric was not just there.

31 UNUSED - un (one in French), US, Ed. (editor, journo)

Down

1 SUITCASE - suit, case

2 STIRRING - st(Ir.)ring

3 MOLASSES - Mo, lasses

5 ROCKED - roc, k, Ed.

6 SCREEN - two def.

7 ANIMAL - reverse hidden in “razor-cLAM I NAil”

8 SINGER - This was one of the last that I got - I think it’s anagram of ’siren’ and g (bit of gleemaiden). If so, what is the def.? “gleemaiden” seems to be doing double duty as def. and bit-yielder

12 SURPLUS - sur(-e), plus - extra is the def.

15 DAB - two def.

16 ?ET - I haven’t solved this as I am unable to interpret the clue, which is: “Do place bear with band (3)”

18 RIPARIAN - anag of ‘Apr rain I’ - As the abbreviation does not have the last letter I would expect a full stop after Apr. - Good surface reading, though.

19 DATELESS - With ….LESS, it took some time for me to figure this out - two def. - For “Go out alone” = [to] date less; Unaffected by time - dateless - There is a R. K. Narayan book by the title “My dateless diary” where ‘dateless’ = free from engagements.

20 DEPARTED - de(part)ed

22 AFFAIR - a, ff., air

23 ARCADE - anag. of ‘car’, a, DE.

24 TATTOO - tat, too

25 GEMINI - rev. of in, I, m., e.g. - neat charade.