So a puzzle with a title of Difficulty – but no indication of its level of difficulty. Nine letters are missing from the subsidiary indications and this then needs to be used to modify the final grid and produce all but one member of a set. Sounds quite hard to me.

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Wan is a new setter to me. I haven’t seen him in the Listener, EV or Inquisitor series, but he/she may have appeared elsewhere. Consequently, I’ve no idea whether to expect a tough puzzle or an easy one.

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‘And’, so it goes on – if you read last week’s rant from Mister Sting… This week’s preamble tells us to replace ‘parts of’ 14 clue answers – as ‘forms’ of 26A. All very well but, unless I am much mistaken, it was 14 cells/squares, involving 21 CLUES. Which sort of detracts from what was actually, in my opinion, just 28D as an EV puzzle.

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First of all, let’s have a rant. The editing was shoddy. Again. There was a missing bar in the grid (making 47ac appear to have 7 letters), ‘for’ was written as ‘fo’ in 7dn, while ‘or’ replaced ‘of’ in 30ac. Only the 7ac mistake was innocuous. I’m sure that the puzzles could be proof read by some enthusiastic amateur if there’s no one willing to do the job properly at the newspaper. At the very least, they could be fixed in the online version. But I digress…

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Back to a long preamble, this week. Four clues with double definitions with one entry different by a thematic entry from the other one. The thematic items can then be described by a phrase 5,4 derived from their collective name. Superfluous letters in other clues to lead to some further statements to modify the final grid – Straight forward – sounds anything but! And an instruction to use a pencil !!! Sacrebleu!

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Extra letters in the wordplay spelt out a quotation and author, which would help to identify a formation and some constituent parts.

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This puzzle had what seemed a rather daunting preamble: across entries intersecting the unclued 12D had to lose ‘something’ which could be construed as a ‘mistake’, replaced by a letter to help form 12D, and leaving real words in all cases. In addition, there were two other thematic entries, clued without definition, which represented a third type of ‘No no’.  On first reading there seemed to be something missing – where is the ‘second’ level between the initial ‘mistakes’ and the ‘third’ type of ‘no-no’?

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An abundance of missing and added letters and words this week. To be precise, 15 omitted letters, 21 extra letters and 4 extra words. But a ‘single shot’. What could it all mean?

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So a short preamble – all entries are affected by A SWIMMING AID, leaving non-words predominantly.

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Apologies for the late running of this blog, but having just gone through the trauma of preparing for a house move, and then experiencing it, many crossword-related tasks have been delayed. However, I have now found my computer and hooked it up, with phone line and broadband operational, so I’m back on track.

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A simple enough preamble introduces ‘Small Change’. All clues have an extra letter in their subsidiary indication, and these letters spell out an instruction. All well and good, but will the small change prove to be a big headache? Read the rest of this entry »

Hopefully I’ve got the right puzzle this time. Let’s check… 1027. Yes. Good.
Many apologies for posting the wrong one earlier.

Shark’s ‘Checkmate’ has extra letters and highlighting galore, which I’d like. I’d also like it if ‘Checkmate’ was a reference to the Wu-Tang Clan (warning: link contains rap music), but I doubt it will be. (It’s not.)

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A short preamble, this week - across clues have an extra letter in their wordplay to spell out an instruction related to an unclued light. Sounds entry level, but is it?

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Just to reiterate what mc_rapper highlighted last week, The Sunday Telegraph is now accepting email submissions for Enigmatic Variations. This requires you to scan your solution/entry coupon, and email it to [email protected], with EV ???? in the subject field. You will get a message of thanks, with the warning of a slap wrist if you fail to complete the subject line correctly! Perhaps there should also be a restriction of only one entry per solver?

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Phew…this was enough to drive a man to drink…(well, this man, anyway)…fiendish preamble, tricky devices and tough clues - with maybe a modicum of encouragement in the definition part of 35A – ‘…this can be resolved‘. Well, it could, but only just in time for the prize entry submission deadline…

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