Posted by Uncle Yap on 21st May 2013
Thank you, Eileen for playing locum tenens so ably last Tuesday when I was climbing the 999 steps to the TienMenSan (Door to Heaven) near ZhangJiaJie in Hunan, the province that gave China an illustrious son, Mao Zedong. Coupled with the Hash run hosted by the Guangzhou Hash, it made for a most refreshing break.
Posted in Guardian | 21 Comments »
Posted by manehi on 20th May 2013
Found this quite tough for a Rufus – the SE corner held me up, and I had to resort to Google for 25ac given the unhelpful crossers. Favourite clues were 6dn and 8dn, as well as 25ac once I understood it.
Posted in Guardian | 18 Comments »
Posted by Gaufrid on 18th May 2013
Apologies for the late appearance of this post. The scheduled blogger has been unable to post and I have been struggling to remember what I did a week ago.
Posted in Guardian | 22 Comments »
Posted by Eileen on 17th May 2013
What a lovely end to the week – Arachne on top form – and aren’t I lucky to get two excellent puzzles to blog in one week? It’s all here – great story-telling [and misleading] surfaces, topical allusions, wit, ingenious constructions: I need say no more, except huge thanks to Arachne – I loved it!
Posted in Guardian | 54 Comments »
Posted by Andrew on 16th May 2013
I made a slow start on this, but after thinking for a while I was going to get nowhere with it, it gradually began to yield. My breakthrough was to be led to the (literally and metaphorically) central thematic answer at 17,19,20 by getting 11,5 from the anagram. Lots of fun in the clues, as always – an enjoyable and satisfying (and tasty) feast. (Anyone trying to use the online version today will have problems, as some of the numbers in the grid are in the wrong order. I gather from comments on the Guardian website that this has also affected some copies of the printed version.)
Posted in Guardian | 37 Comments »
Posted by PeterO on 15th May 2013
The crossword may be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/cryptic/25948.
Posted in Guardian | 49 Comments »
Posted by Eileen on 14th May 2013
I am standing in today for Uncle Yap, who is away. I don’t think I have blogged a Philistine puzzle before but I’m a great fan of his, so I count myself lucky to have drawn this one.
Posted in Guardian | 42 Comments »
Posted by scchua on 13th May 2013
A typical Rufus with concise clues of mostly cryptic and double definitions and anagrams. Thanks Rufus. Definitions are underlined in the clues. [[The pictures at the bottom have unidentified links to the puzzle. Please enclose any comments on them in double brackets. Thank you.]]
Posted in Guardian | 18 Comments »
Posted by PeeDee on 10th May 2013
I used to find Tramp puzzles pretty tricky but I think I must be getting on to his wavelength at last. I have not seen any of the Star Wars movies but fortunately for me it was not necessary to know anything about them to get to the solutions. Thank you Tramp.
Posted in Guardian | 20 Comments »
Posted by Andrew on 10th May 2013
Gordius is appearing at strange intervals these days – he used to be fairly predictably every other week, but then we saw him on a Friday and the following Tuesday, and now today as well as last Tuesday. Regular readers will know I am not his greatest fan: I found this a little harder than some of his recent puzzles, though with no major hold-ups, and with the usual smattering of niggles.
Posted in Guardian | 36 Comments »
Posted by manehi on 9th May 2013
Fun and challenging, despite the two longer clues falling almost immediately. Favourites were 15a and 3d.
Posted in Guardian | 26 Comments »
Posted by PeterO on 8th May 2013
The puzzle may be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/cryptic/25942.
Posted in Guardian | 35 Comments »
Posted by Uncle Yap on 7th May 2013
I solved this in about half an hour but spend a lot more time being distracted, first by playing Spice Girls songs and then Queen’s haunting Bohemian Rhapsody a few times here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ. Very entertaining and quite enough to alleviate the intense disappointment that we did not get a new government after all. Thank you, Paul. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Guardian | 38 Comments »
Posted by Eileen on 6th May 2013
A pretty typical Rufus puzzle for a sunny [!] Bank Holiday morning – lovely surfaces throughout, a fair sprinkling of anagrams and cryptic [some not so cryptic] definitions, some clever clues, like 24ac and 6 and 11 dn, a few double definitions – and one ambiguous clue, 17ac. Many thanks, Rufus – enjoy the day, everyone!
Posted in Guardian | 19 Comments »
Posted by Eileen on 4th May 2013
And still Araucaria keeps them coming! Like PeterO yesterday, I count myself blessed in having landed a good proportion of them recently. I was fortunate in that 12ac, for which we Brits, of necessity, have a number of paraphrases, was one of the handful that I got on the first run-through, so, once I got started, I found this an amusing and entertaining solve, during which, perhaps fittingly, there was a very sudden and rather violent freak hailstorm here.
Posted in Guardian | 18 Comments »