Featured crossword No 11

Extremely entertaining -brilliant surfaces and oblique definitions had me laughing while scratching my head. A few standouts: 1a,8a,13a,21a,24a, 3d,15d,19d,21d

Thanks for the Featured Crossword. 19d got a smile, of course. Liked the definition in 13d and my favourite was 8a. PS. It looks like the blog post link is broken?

Thanks for a fun puzzle, Guinevere! Enjoyed that, and the theme is nicely integrated. Will list favourites in the other place when it’s up! Nice one!

Thanks Guinevere, this went swimmingly well! Congrats on filling the tank so full and with such a rich array of life forms, all wonderfully highlighted with your brilliant clueing. My standout selection: 4a, 20a, 21a, 1d, 2d, 3d, 13d, 17d, 19d. A very worthy featured crossword!

Very entertaining Guinevere, thanks! Wasn’t sure if was solving a MyC feature or the Hoskins at certain points! 20a beat me in the end, but otherwise a pretty speedy solve. 19d has to make the podium for the sheer balls of it, to be accompanied by 12a and 23a.

Great stuff — I will comment over there ->

Very enjoyable puzzle and so entertained by the clues I missed the bigger picture, which I can now see is obvious with many theme words. Smooth constructions, I couldn't parse 20a as not familiar with the abbreviation, but a lovely clue and a couple of NHO's (same as Quirister) - faves on 15sqd thank you!

This was fun, Guinevere. For whatever reason, I solved this in four clean quadrants, NW then SE, SW, and NE, two before bed and two before coffee. I'll post details to 15^2 - thanks again.

Thanks Guinevere for the featured entertainment. My top picks are listed on 15-squared. Nice theme.

Very enjoyable - the abbreviation at 20a new one for me. 10d a brilliant clue. Nice to see the Cross City Line getting a mention.

Well done G. I have commented on 225 but reaffirm that my two COTDs are 18a and 19d - very droll. Thanks. PM

Brilliant grid, there are some absolutely stand-out clues here! Personal favourites have to be 12a, 14a, 23a, 25a, 1d, 2d. 6d, 13d, 19d and 21d. Fantastic surface work.

Very enjoyable grid, Guinevere. Liked 23a, 17d and 22d the most

I'm a bit later than most to this, and a very enjoyable solve - thanks Guinevere for the latest in the Featured series. Very impressed with your ability to fit so many theme-related words into such a tightly interlinking grid, and my top picks are: 4a, 11a, 13a, 2d, 22d. Hadn't heard of 17d, which was my LOI and required quite a bit of staring at before the parsing became clear.

Fabulous puzzle, thank you! I particularly enjoyed 7d, 19d and 22d. Like others, I didn't know the abbreviation in 20a, so I eventually cheated. Struggling a bit with the "in" in 18a and the comma in 2d, but that's probably me misunderstanding the parse 🤣