Mastermind at Work: Solving the Times Cryptic Crossword LIVE! 

Thanks for the video!

Thanks!

Beautifully solved. Well done.

Excellent

I recommend this week's Inquisitor. Not too hard but thoroughly enjoyable.

I had the same LOI, but I just looked around the crossers for a minute, biffed it, and submitted - yeah, that’s the only joint that fits., and luckily it was.

Regarding the convention that clues didn't reference living people: except ER? Or am I misunderstanding what the convention was?

DOVETAIL was a beautifully reasoned solution. Living people in the Times crossword? I know they did a "modern slang" crossword where living people, brand names, etc were expected ; I hope it doesn't dilute the quality of the main crossword though ; my modern cultural knowledge is quite shocking

Re living people being featured as answers in the crossword, I'm willing to wager we'll get the old chestnut of PRESBYTERIANS being used as anagram fodder for BRITNEY SPEARS at some stage !

Is Cardinal Red referring to the bird, maybe?

Amazing as usual! One thing I didn't understand was, in clue 11 across, I thought Gold was 'AU' from its chemical name. Where does the 'OR' come from?