Even before you’d filled in a single answer, you knew that there was something else going on in this puzzle: the plus signs in 2 across and 2 down clues, 8 more in the unchecked squares going through the middle of the grid and great big one formed by black squares in the middle of the grid. The clues with + signs in them were special in that answers were anagrams of each other: RELIANT, RATLINE; RAMBLED, MARBLED; REBOUND, BOUNDER and ELAPSED, PLEASED. Then it emergedn that the unchecked squares with + signs in the corner were filled with the letters ANAG and RAMS. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was even more going on which I’ve missed. An excellent puzzle, with just the right amount of difficulty for a Saturday. Read the rest of this entry »

Solving time 13:30

Quite tricky this one – partly because of 22,11,12 which I didn’t get until many checking letters were in place – “C _ C _ / N _ _ _ / _ _ _ / U _ E / _ I _ E” says the scribbling at the bottom of the page. Read the rest of this entry »