I came off the bench to do a rushed blog for Orlando’s Guardian cryptic puzzle last week, and we come across each other again this morning.  I thought this was a nicely constructed Quiptic which fulfilled its brief to be suitable for ‘beginners and those in a hurry’.  I wasn’t in a particular hurry today, though, and enjoyed the range of cluing devices and story-telling surfaces.

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Another pleasing and straightforward Monday crossword from Quixote, which probably would not have detained an experienced solver for long, but which would be perfect for beginning or improving puzzlers.

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A standard Rufus, heavy on the cryptic and double (and one double wordplay) definitions, and the odd marine reference.  Not everyone’s cuppa (but then what is?).  Thanks Rufus, enjoyed this.  Definitions are underlined in the clues.  [[The pictures at the bottom have unidentified links to the puzzle.  As usual please double-bracket any comments on them.  Thank you.]]

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If I say I only had 5 to go after the “first pass” (all clues attempted) that will make it seem it was a easy Eye crossword or else I was on fire.  In fact I re-calibrated my  ”first pass” counter when late on in the solving I found I hadn’t attempted 19D.  Mainly because I hadn’t noticed I’d crossed it with all it’s crossing letters.  But also because I became engrossed in the solving of the rest of the grid and didn’t remember to tick off the clues.  Undoubtedly this took longer than normal, even allowing for scribbling some blog notes on the way.

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