Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of May 12, 2012

Read the rest of this entry »

I found this difficult, there is one clue I still have no idea about.  Very enjoyable regardless, solved with much use of the dictionary.  Thank you Monk.

Read the rest of this entry »

I think all the entries for this puzzle are words familiar to Independent readers.  

Read the rest of this entry »

This puzzle had a fairly long preamble: "In every clue but one, a letter must be removed from the definition part before solving.  In clue order, these spell out the beginning of a quotation by an author whose three initials appear regularly spaced in row nine.  Solvers must illustrate the remainder by

Read the rest of this entry »

This is Philistine’s eighth appearance since his Guardian debut almost exactly a year ago (26th May 2011). As seems to be the norm for his puzzles, this one was fairly straightforward, but with inventive and witty clueing making it a pleasure to solve. I have a couple of factual quibbles, noted below, but nothing too serious.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every year on 31 December, nmsindy posts an annual review of the Indy puzzles on 15 sq giving average solving times for each setter.      Very often I’ve been asked “How do the other puzzle series compare with this?”      So I decided, out of interest, to tackle them all for one calendar month to see.    I chose March 2012.

Read the rest of this entry »

The last time we had a Punk he had me as a blogger and I was less than complimentary about his puzzle — but it was pointed out that I shouldn’t have been. Not this time: he has given us a pleasant and apparently quite sound crossword.

Read the rest of this entry »

An easy going puzzle with some good surfaces from a regular starter for the FT week.  Thanks Jason.  Definitions are underlined in the clues.  [[Each picture at the bottom has an unidentified link to the crossword.]]

Read the rest of this entry »

Not the blogger you were led last week to expect [I'm a 23's 23 today] with a rather later blog than usual for a Tuesday [but Uncle Yap has a 7-hour start on me. ]

Read the rest of this entry »

Apologies for the late blog; I failed to note it was my turn until the last minute.
Read the rest of this entry »

Enjoyed this – got 8ac second last and got to play hunt-the-theme on the finished grid. Also liked 25ac. 22dn and 24dn. Read the rest of this entry »

Quixote is twelfth man today, so Tyrus is running up to the crease this morning to bowl us some googlies and doosras.  I was slightly concerned when I saw his name on the team sheet, because when he’s in full-on bouncer and yorker mode I do find his puzzles somewhere between tough and impossible and usually retire hurt.  But he’s given us enough straight-up-and-down deliveries this morning, I think, and while I played and missed a few times, I was in the end able to raise my bat modestly to the sparse crowd.  And in case you’re concerned that that’s a spoiler, worry not …

Read the rest of this entry »

This was an enojyable Sunday solve, just about the right level of difficulty to fill a 45 minute gap waiting for the football to start in the pub. There’s a good mixture of clue types, including some very nice anagrams (21A being my favourite). Read the rest of this entry »

I always look forward to blogging the Everyman puzzle, because there’ll be plenty of inventive but gettable clues and a wide range of references that often have me going off on a tangent to look up more about a particular subject.  I also thought there were some exceptionally good surfaces this morning.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oddly enough my last clue was the one I should have recognized immediately (since I used to live on a kibbutz) — namely, 15A.  On which I think Azed made a slight mistake.   My standard quota of two or so puzzling wordplays to be resolved.

Read the rest of this entry »