I’ll get my grumble out of the way first: the crossword editor should be hanged. There were FIVE length errors (46 across and 2, 16, 32, 42 down). These didn’t make solving harder, but such mistakes can do so, and are in any case unacceptably sloppy. Also, 38dn should have been hyphenated, and this did affect the difficulty. Furthermore, speaking of affects, 31ac read ‘AFTER AFFECTS’, rather than ‘AFTEREFFECTS’.

No one who solves the Enigmatic Variations with any regularity will be inclined to the opinion that perhaps the editor had an off day, as errors are far too common. In summary, next time I suggest that the editor uses the time-honoured technique of actually looking at the puzzle. With their eyes. Read the rest of this entry »

A short preamble, straight clues apart from a protagonist to find and several without a definition 3 descriptions of the protagonist and four works by them – Sounds like this might be one for the advanced cryptic beginner.

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I started this puzzle only a couple of days shy of this blog being due, so I was beginning to panic. The clues sounded relatively straightforward, with only seven misprints to be found. But then one word needed changing leaving new words, and four words had to be highlighted. The last two steps had me a bit worried … and rightly so!!

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There are several devices going on in LOSS – answers altered before entry; extra letters in wordplay; clashing across and down entries; and lines to be drawn in the completed grid. All probably familiar to regular EV solvers – but not always all together in the same puzzle!…and, as if that’s not enough, there appear to be a couple of EV gremlins adding to the mixture.

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A standard format this week: missing letters form a message that will hopefully give enough information about the theme to allow the grid to be filled in without too much difficulty. Read the rest of this entry »

Well quite complicated in the preamble stakes this week. Single letter omissions from definitions in some clues spell out a phrase and 4 down clues have missing letters in their wordplay. There’s also an unclued answer. Then there’s some highlighting to do – Sounds like an interesting cruciverbal safari?

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I blogged the last EV Oxymoron puzzle, with its Humphrey Bogart and Sir Isaac Newton theme. That was great fun, so hopefully more of the same here. Single letters were to be dropped from across answers, spelling out part of an Epilogue, and that would indicate how down entries were to be entered.

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A short preamble instructs solvers to consider ‘SENTRY DUTIES’ in ‘thematically treating’ 12 answers before entry, to create new words. So far so good. But then we are told: ‘How the remaining answers must be entered could also be considered thematic.’ Doesn’t that mean that ALL answers are treated thematically?! I think I have solved/completed this, but I’m still not sure that all the remaining answers were ‘treated’…

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There’s a lot going on in the preamble: a partial quotation, CLASHes ‘contributing to’ a further CLASH, those involved in the CLASH and – just for good measure – a final CLASH to be written below the grid. Unusually, all but the last clue yield a superfluous letter in the subsidiary indication. Why might that be? Well, I have a theory.

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So straight clues this week apart from seven with no definition (with a thematic treatment) and six unclued. So what will the “Two of a Kind” prove to be?

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A seemingly straightforward puzzle this week, but I was sure it wouldn’t turn out to be free of a trick or two.

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A cryptic title, hinting maybe at Columbo, with his dour demeanour and down-at-heel dress sense? The preamble tells us to find a horizontally-symmetrical four word quotation, and twelve answers needing some sort of adjustment before entry – which for me means a working copy of the grid and a sharpened pencil…a sharp mind would help as well, but we can’t have everything! The aforementioned twelve are also undefined in their clues, which have ‘some’ extra words as a further distraction.

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With this sort of DIY grid puzzle, it all depends how easy cold-solving is. So how easy is this going to be? And what’s the puzzle actually called?

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Lego – now that’s something you can never get tired of playing with!

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A lot going on in the preamble here, but everything was spelt out relatively clearly!

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