Independent 7527 by Anax
Posted by flashling on 30th November 2010
Posted in Independent | 14 Comments »
Archive for November, 2010
Guardian 25,181 Paul for Autumnal Treat
Posted by Uncle Yap on 30th November 2010
I might have guessed that on the day of the first Meet The Guardian Team that the featured setter would have his puzzle published. Well, I have travelled some 7,000 miles to a bitterly cold London (it even started snowing last night or this morning) to attend and I know a treat awaits tonight.
Posted in Guardian | 35 Comments »
Financial Times 13,556 / Gurney
Posted by Agentzero on 30th November 2010
A new setter, or a new pseudonym for an established setter who is new to the FT? I’m not sure, although there is something vaguely familiar about the style–reminiscent of both Armonie (the concision) and Rufus/Dante (the cd’s). Either way, welcome! If this is indeed a new setter, this is an impressive debut–very smooth and accomplished. Personal favourites were 8 down (an &lit.) and 23 across. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in FT | 7 Comments »
Guardian 25,180 / Brendan
Posted by mhl on 29th November 2010
Sorry for a very rushed post today – there’s part of 22 across that I can’t see, I’m afraid. This was an excellent puzzle from Brendan – my favourites here in particular are the two &lits.
Posted in Guardian | 20 Comments »
Guardian Quiptic 576/Hectence
Posted by Pierre on 29th November 2010
A pleasing puzzle from Hectence, with a couple of very clever clues as well as some tricky ones.
Posted in Guardian Quiptic | 18 Comments »
Independent 7526 by Hypnos
Posted by NealH on 29th November 2010
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Independent | 12 Comments »
Independent on Sunday 1,084 by Quixote
Posted by Simon Harris on 28th November 2010
This is my first attempt at blogging a Sunday Quixote (well, technically it’s my second due to my mixing up the dates, but that’s another story), so I hope I can do it justice. Despite the extra pressure of knowing I would have to explain things, I found this quite a smooth and relatively quick solve.
Posted in Independent | 3 Comments »
Beelzebub 1,083 (21/11/10)
Posted by Simon Harris on 28th November 2010
A good week – not too hard or too easy, though the SW corner put up a fight for me. Highlights were learning that there is an anagram of GYMNAST, and that there is a word that ends in -AGD!
Posted in Beelzebub | No Comments »
Azed 2008: Sunday 21 November
Posted by jetdoc on 28th November 2010
A mostly straightforward Azed, with a few that held me up for a while and needed to be checked in Chambers (like the definition of ‘office’ in 19a).
Posted in Azed | 3 Comments »
Everyman No. 3347 (21st November)
Posted by The Trafites on 28th November 2010
Lorraine: Hi fellow solvers, nothing too difficult this week, but had to look up 17d after managing to work out the answer but did not know it was the capital of Estonia. First in was 22ac, spotted it immediately when scanning through the clues which I do every week to get the easy ones in to get me up and running. Nick always puts a few links in for me every week, I hope you find them enjoyable. Thank you Everyman, especially for the anagrams which I enjoy so much.
Posted in Everyman | 6 Comments »
Guardian 25,173 (Sat 20 Nov)/Bonxie – Cobblers
Posted by rightback on 27th November 2010
Solving time: 14 mins
This may have been Bonxie’s first prize puzzle in the Guardian, in which case my congratulations to the setter. There were some nice ideas here but on close analysis some of the clues didn’t make a lot of sense. On reflection, several of the Guardianisms I winced at when solving are just about tolerable, e.g. ‘editor first’ = E and lots of surface-reading punctuation that needed to be ignored, but others, such as ‘headline’ = L (18ac), the meaningless constructions at 2dn and 23dn and the truly awful 19dn, were taking things much too far for me. Mind you, my performance was also dreadful, with particular slowness on 12dn (WHOLE), 20dn (PIRATE) and 21ac (CONTAINER).
Posted in Guardian | 25 Comments »
Independent 7519 (Sat 20-Nov) Anax
Posted by beermagnet on 27th November 2010
A Leo Tolstoy themed puzzle because 20-Nov-2010 was exactly 100 years since the great man’s death.
Posted in Independent | 12 Comments »
Enigmatic Variations No. 941 – The Sign of Four by Salamanca
Posted by mc_rapper67 on 27th November 2010
A fellow EV blogger recently mused on the ‘blogger’s nightmare’ of being allocated a puzzle he/she can’t get to the bottom of. Well, here’s an example (unless the penny drops some time between writing this up and posting it!)… The preamble talks of ‘the most abstruse cryptogram’, a ‘seven percent solution’, signs, gifts and interpretations linked to the theme of ‘FOUR’, and some ‘imaginative’ picturing of items in the grid. It all turned out to be a FOUR-pipe problem, far from elementary, and defeated my best efforts at detection.
Posted in Enigmatic Variations | 6 Comments »
Independent 7,524/Phi
Posted by Ali on 26th November 2010
Lovely stuff as ever from Phi. Nothing overly difficult here, but great clueing and a fine range of cryptic devices.
Posted in Independent | 14 Comments »
Financial Times 13,553 / Falcon
Posted by shuchi on 26th November 2010
Probably an easy ride for someone who’s well up on alcoholic drinks. Given my modest knowledge of the subject, I had a bit of a struggle with some of the answers but the wordplay was helpful throughout.
Posted in FT | 3 Comments »