I solved this one before I realised I was going to blog it and haven’t made any contemporaneous notes.
I can’t even remember which was the first clue answered, nor which was the last.  I was certainly not stuck on anything at the end, just left with a smile, so that indicates the puzzle was not too hard.

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An enjoyable solve.  Although more than half fell in the first pass, the rest needed deconstruction of some interesting wordplay.

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With apologies to anyone who struggled, I thought this was a remarkably straightforward puzzles — a quick solve on a train. I don’t have much to say about it — entertaining and clever as usual, but not quite vintage Cyclops. I think 11a is probably my favourite clue.

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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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With many apologies for lateness. Events conspired against me when it came to finding time to write this blog, though the puzzle itself was a relatively straightforward solve. I do hope you will excuse my having given priority, even at this pressured time of major househould refurbishment (it’ll look lovely when it’s finished), to attending all of what turned out to be a tremendously entertaining, if somewhat frustrating, test match at Lord’s. Read the rest of this entry »

It may have passed you by, but the Olympics is on at the moment in London, and Cyclops chose to draw attention to it by including a couple of well-known Olympic mottoes in the grid …

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I didn’t have too many problems with most of this, but had difficulty working out the wordplay in 4d, for which I had written STRIPED without really thinking about it. A few LOL clues (and I don’t mean ‘lots of love’), with 6d possibly my favourite. Read the rest of this entry »

Back to a slightly tougher crossword this time.  At least that’s how I found it, both to get started and to find those last pesky couple of answers.

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A Cyclops of average difficulty this week (seems like I always say that!), with nothing that held me up for long. I will go for 9d as my fave clue, for its complete absurdity. Read the rest of this entry »

There was no obvious Jubilee theme from Cyclops – I assume he compiled it whilst wearing his union jack bowtie.

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An entertaining Cyclops puzzle this fortnight, with some clever wordplay. I think the very first clue, 8a, has to be my favourite. Read the rest of this entry »

Seemed to me Cyclops was making a particular theme of solitary sexual gratification this week. No? Just me then.
I expect he didn’t really mean to milk it.

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First, further apologies — I promised to post this, already late, yesterday, but didn’t get home to my office (where this almost finished blog was waiting for me) until late.

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This crossword was unusual in two respects.
It had a large number of clues: This grid design gives 32 lights and only one clue involved two lights, whereas Cyclops often creates longer answers using more than one light.
It had “accessible” clues – all except one, 11A, “le mot sauvage et obscur” a surprisingly rare word for an Eye puzzle. I certainly had to check the dictionary.

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The usual fun from Cyclops, who has managed as ever to work all sorts of salacious references into wordplay for simple and innocent words. Clue of the fortnight, though, has to be 17a, for which the answer is less decorous. Read the rest of this entry »