Posted by neildubya on 26th June 2007
Another FT, another new name for me. I really enjoyed this one – lots of excellent clues and just the right amount of difficulty. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in FT | No Comments »
Posted by ilancaron on 26th June 2007
Felt a bit Araucarian today – surfaces sacrificed at the altar of clever wordplay. I had to look up SALOPETTE – which I think is contrived (derived from SALOP which I recognized as being Shrewsbury-related).
Posted in Guardian | 8 Comments »
Posted by michod on 25th June 2007
A pretty straightforward Monday solve (10 mins-ish), tightly clued and accessible as ever, with quite a few anagrams and lots of cryptic definitions – some very good, others a tad obvious. About half the answers came more or less straight away, but there was some tougher meat in there too, with 9 across detaining me for a little while.
Posted in Guardian | 6 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 24th June 2007
Not too taxing and therefore perfect for a Sunday morning, especially if Saturday night went on too long and you’re in desperate need of a 23A or similar restorative. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Everyman | No Comments »
Posted by loonapick on 23rd June 2007
Sorry for the delay in getting this blog ready, but I struggled with this puzzle, because I couldn’t work out the device required to fill the grid. As usual when I seek inspiration, Mr Biddlecombe came through for me.
Posted in Inquisitor | No Comments »
Posted by rightback on 23rd June 2007
Solving time: 7:16
I’m not sure I’ve ever solved an Araucaria puzzle faster than this. ‘Collie’ was my first solve, followed (via a look at 27ac) by ‘flour’ and then somehow an inspired spot of the anagram at 1/17dn.
Posted in Guardian | 1 Comment »
Posted by smiffy on 22nd June 2007
An enjoyable puzzle and just about the right degree of difficulty for a Friday, I felt. A pretty eclectic spectrum of clues,
including everything from a couple of pre-historic chestnuts (e.g. the ETON/NOTE reversal) to a handful of relatively (for the FT, at least) arcane answers. Of the latter, I happened to know one (21d) and managed to deduce another (15d), but the third (8d) was unknown to me and I resorted to looking it up.
Posted in FT | No Comments »
Posted by Colin Blackburn on 22nd June 2007
When I swapped to Friday this week I expected a nice Phi puzzle, instead I got Nimrod! A little more difficult than Phi for me with some clues still a mystery. However, much of it was straightforward thanks to the long anagram and me seeing 1dn as soon as I had P-D… A couple of the clues are gems. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Independent | 7 Comments »
Posted by michod on 22nd June 2007
My blog day falling conveniently on a day off, I settled down at 8.30 to get the crossword out of the way,but it was not to be. Several hours of partner stranded by tube chaos, daughter’s forgotten homework etc ate up the morning. So you could say this one took me three hours, but I think it was more like 20-25 minutes. Quite hard, and with some good tight clueing, the linked clues all having to do with numbers, in the contexts of sports and time.
Posted in Guardian | 1 Comment »
Posted by linxit on 22nd June 2007
Apologies for this being a day late. I had to go to a customer site yesterday and didn’t get back till 8pm, when I found that my ADSL connection was still down. I had been promised that it would be fixed by yesterday afternoon, but this morning it’s still down. Anyway, I solved this on my knee in the back of my boss’s car on the way back yesterday evening, so hopefully I can now read my own writing!
Posted in Guardian | 3 Comments »
Posted by petebiddlecombe on 22nd June 2007
Solving time 11:40
Here’s the explanation for the gentle ribbing about “strange characters turning up on Saturday” in the comments on last week’s Virgilius puzzle. For those who don’t know, Eimi is Indie xwd ed Mike Hutchinson giving himself one of his four or so slots each year. I tend to find Eimi puzzles quite hard (possibly because they’re infrequent), so I was quite pleased with 11:40, though the right first guess at 17 might have made it a minute or two faster. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Independent | 4 Comments »
Posted by nmsindy on 21st June 2007
Posted in Independent | No Comments »
Posted by nmsindy on 21st June 2007
Monk is among the toughest setters, with some very original treatments, and very rigorous logic in the clues. Usually his puzzles in the Indy are themed, but I cannot see one here. (Later found the theme – I am now amending the review to include info on it, but have put it after the clue explanations so, if you have not found it and want to look further, you can) Also major difficulty with 6 across, again anyone who can enlighten me, please do so. (Thanks to all those who pointed out that it’s a cryptic definition to MITTEN)
Posted in Independent | 9 Comments »
Posted by ilancaron on 21st June 2007
Some nice well-disguised wordplay here – especially wrt use of head and tail letters – while preserving good surfaces. Two identical nippy clues here which are well-handled.
Posted in Guardian | 10 Comments »