Food for thought this week, with SARNIES on the menu from Syd Lexis. Not much else to chew on for starters – with an unnumbered and only partially-barred grid…but at least Across and Down were indicated! In the classic Monty Python ‘Aussie Wine’ sketch there is the line: ‘This is not a wine for drinking, this is a wine for laying down and avoiding!’…and I normally take that approach with unnumbered/thematic jigsaws. But the rota says it is my turn to blog, so I pressed on, hoping I hadn’t bitten off more than I could chew, and that I would get my just desserts - not end up looking like a pudding.

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I do like Samuel. I can’t remember exactly which past EVs were his, but his name is associated in my mind with a sort of pleasant, hazy, possibly-toughish-in-parts-but-fair feeling. Perhaps I’m post-rationalising, because I’d say that was a good description of this one.

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Well a short preamble – completely straight clues and just five unclued entries. Sounds like this could be one for the less experienced to try. And an unfamiliar compiler, to me, anyway.

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I’ve come across a couple of Shark puzzles before and have been nicely entertained by them. Here, subsidiary indications led to an extra letter not entered, and they spelt out part of a quotation in recent editions of the ODQ although “barely indexed” in the 4th edition. Luckily I have the 5th, so thanks for that.

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What delights does Warbler have in store for us with A TRIP OUT? A magical mystery tour? A druggy ‘trip’? Or maybe a wildlife safari – is that ‘OUT’ an anagrind, with TAPIR as A TRIP ‘out’?

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This was magnificent. A great theme, well executed. Many thanks to… well, to whom, exactly?

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So 10 unclued entries this week, and all in a “depleted” form. And either one or two letters have been added to some clues (whenever thematically possible) . All very cryptic – ah but this is a cryptic crossword with a twist or 2. Sounds intriguing.

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I did a blog for a Salamanca puzzle at Listen With Others back in January 2010. However, this is my first for one of his EVs, which is surprising since he’s had ten or so since we started blogging them here.

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In a blaze of publicity, celebration, and razz-a-ma-tazz, the likes of which have not been seen since the Y2K celebrations of 1999/2000, the EV series has reached its own millennial milestone…congratulations to all the setters and editors involved along the way, and thanks for all the enjoyment/frustration/challenges you have given us. I’ve been doing EVs for about 10 years now – with maybe three or four of those ‘distinctive Telegraph fountain pens’ to show for it – but I’m sure there will be some of you out there who can claim to have been in from the start…?

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‘All Change’ seems appropriate for a puzzle published on 1st January. Will the theme at least be more apt than last week’s war-based Christmas offering?

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Only ten weeks since the last Oxymoron EV (988, Pairs), but I, for one, am not complaining. One letter or (in five cases) word to be removed from each clue, and they would spell out three thematic items which would enable completion of the puzzle.

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Well a crossword published on Christmas day and what a preamble! Read the rest of this entry »

A shorter (and less complicated!) preamble than some recent EVs – each clue giving an extra letter, which would spell out an instruction to apply to all answers before entry.

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The entry deadline for this EV has been pushed out to 30-Dec, so I will post the blog on 31-Dec. Also, I have seen somewhere that there will be an ON-LINE ONLY EV (presumably no. 999) on Xmas Day at the Telegraph Crossword site (members only), along with all their other Sunday puzzles. A bit discriminatory against their paper-only solvers, but it must improve the odds of winning a prize this weekend!… A Merry Xmas to you all…

The preamble doesn’t give very much away: 12 normal clues, the answers to which require ‘adjustment’. The other clues must have a letter removed before solving. The last sentence includes the always-worrying “numbers in brackets indicate the length of grid spaces”. When you don’t know how long a clue has to be – or (much the same thing) which clues are or are not the length indicated, it makes it that much harder. Just what does Jacques have in store?

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