In this week’s puzzle, 16 clues needed to have a word in the definition unmixed after the removal of one letter, these removed letters giving a range of ingredients. I can’t believe this device hasn’t been used before, but I don’t remember it. It turned out to be quite entertaining, although many of the words to be treated were fairly obvious, especially ampul in 27ac, nazirs in 33ac and dioptase at 1dn. Not that it was particularly easy to be sure of the unmixed word and extra letter.

Read the rest of this entry »

Is it a Double Pangram? – Yes it is!

First pass 10 answers in 10 mins which is good going for me, and by the end of the first session I was stuck with only 8 to go. I have certainly tackled tougher crossies by Monk, and tougher Prize Puzzles. But there was a reason for getting on so well with this one – Monk has acheived the remarkable feat of producing a DOUBLE Pangram using interesting but mostly accessible words.

Read the rest of this entry »

A very characteristic offering from Araucaria this week with one of his long poetic anagrams and some typical charades.  It took me a little over an hour to complete without resort to a dictionary or  a computer until after I had completed the grid. However the wordplay has eluded me at 10 down, so assistance please. Read the rest of this entry »