*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def
Read the rest of this entry »

A rare Monday outing for Araucaria, and a puzzle that was mostly fairly easy, though with a couple of shaky definitions and some dubious wordplay. The grid is a bit strange, being almost cut in two horizontally, with only the two long Downs breaking it up. Read the rest of this entry »

I enjoyed this and didn’t find it as hard as last time. How hard anyone finds a puzzle must vary not just from puzzle to puzzle and person to person but also depends upon other factors such as your comfort, worries, tiredness, how many pints you are to the good, how many pints you haven’t had, and so on. Last time I did have a struggle, for whatever reason, but looking back at that puzzle now I can understand some of the comments suggesting it was easier than I described. Looking at this one, I’m unsure whether to describe it as easy. It was certainly enjoyable and there are some suitably rude and funny surface readings helped by another clutch of inventive anagram indicators. And I did finish it in one sitting. This time there were no nasty tail-enders hanging on with no score, sometimes overnight, till eventually stumped.
This was under quite idyllic solving conditions – quietly in the garden with the blossom out on an afternoon of a beautiful spring day after with a well earned pint (and another bottle to hand) after giving a couple of hours to turning over the vegetable patch.
This may not be everyone’s experience, and I can well believe there are a couple of clues here that would normally have resisted my attentions longer.

Read the rest of this entry »