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Oh, and I really liked 6d. My CoD.

(1) Personally I find "strict carnivore" fine. Many amimals usually thought of as carnivores aren't strict carnivores; wolves, for example, but this one is. As for the objection that the clue would work without that word, yes it would, but so what? Is there some reason that a clue has to be written in the simplest possible way? I've never heard of "the law of concision" before, and now that I have I don't see any reason why setters should follow it. And why is it an "unfair red herring"? Red herrings are a significant part of cryptic crossword clues, and this one seems to me no more unfair than any others. (2) Thank you, Chrise, for clarifying 3d. I feel rather stupid, because I thought of the relevant word, but amazingly didn't think of taking it in reverse, despite the fact that the solution clearly tells me to. 😳 (3) I'd still love some help on 15a, if anyone will be do kind. I can find only a handful of words that fit, and apart from "You said" I can't see any connection of any of them to any part of the clue.

If anyone's interested, clues I liked were 6d & 9a.

I've still got a couple to get in the NW, but on 15A, it's a homophone followed by a parasite and the definition is what a mole is an example of.

Hi micky-

For 15a I'm gathering you've got the first letter from 'You said', so the 'potential parasite' gives you the next 3 letters, with 'mole, for example' being the definition.

I'd add that Mole is an outdated example of the answer

Just finished:LOI the first half of 14, after a nudge of "mother" from some of the most recent posts here.

Only got the penultimate, 15, after the nudge of someone who said something like "I hadn't known that meaning of mole", which pushed me to think beyond animal/spy/pier!

FOI 1/2d, with help of husband who looked at the puzzle first.

COD: I think the ingenious 6.

Lots of rather nice clues: an enjoyable puzle.

Not to relitigate the whole 14d debate on whether 'strict' was superfluous BUT!

I parsed 'strict carnivore' as indicating a 'true' or 'obligate' carnivore: an animal that can only feed on meat, which as Rogissimo pointed out does narrow the field.

That said, my parsing is probably eccentric and definitely redundant- why put carnivore in the clue if the synonym needed also has carnivore in it?

An elegant compromise according to the law of concision might be:


'Strict meat-eater tucking right into piece of seafood'

OK, I've now got 15a. The reason I was stuck on it was evidently that I had the wrong first word for 14d. I now have to think again about the controversial "strict carnivore" may be. Sigh...

OK, got it. I'd never heard of them, but not difficult to work out once I unfixated my brain from the wrong answer I had come up with before.

If you ever go to Benihana's, I recommend you try the 15d and 22d 😋