Thanks for your comments. One thing I like about this website is the opportunity to learn the opinions of other solvers, which is a good thing.

I eventually finished Everyman Number 3,326 – I solved 23 clues by myself and got the remaining 5 clues with assistance from my reference books and electronic aids so not too bad I suppose.

On Sunday, I usually do the Everyman puzzle as well as the excellent puzzle by Brian “Virgilius” Greer in the Sunday Telegraph. I think Sunday, 27 June, was the first time ever that I completed the Sunday Telegraph puzzle more quickly than the Everyman puzzle so anyone who finished the Everyman cryptic in good time has every reason to feel pleased.

Many thanks to Allan Scott for his puzzles and to Lorraine, Nick and Arthur for their comprehensive reviews. I look forward to this Sunday’s Everyman puzzle in the Observer.

Nathan, I too found this week’s puzzle on the harder side, and needed a bit of online help to finish it. But I have noticed that there are differing levels of difficulty with Everyman, which I think is a positive feature – for many people it’s the ‘entry level’ to cryptics, so once you’ve managed a few then it’s good to get a challenging one now and then.

There were some lovely surfaces here, especially for INEPT, SIMPLE INTEREST and APOSTATE.

I have an Araucaria around here with about three words filled in after many attempts, around Weds. I remembered I had an Everyman lying in wait so turned to it in relief. Not only did I completely finish it, but I have no marks indicating that I didn’t follow the cryptic part. Oh wait, there is one. Tail = DOCK? Must be the 7th definition in Chambers or something… oh, I see, the 17th or so def in my Webster’s is “to remove the tail…”.

No memory of whether I needed any aids, though. I might not have, since I see no words I didn’t previously know.

Thanks for the blog!

Thank you for the excellent review. As you pointed out this one was not too taxing. I finished it over a couple of pints at my local club.

However, I am really struggling with this week’s puzzle (Number 3,326). I have already spent three times longer than I did solving last week’s and I have’t even finished half of it yet. I can’t believe that two puzzles by the same compiler can vary so much in difficulty. I fear I may have to use my dictionary and thesaurus to have any hope of finishing it so I find that rather disappointing and disheartening.