Never knowingly undersolved
Doing better than last week – I’ve managed to post in the morning even though the paperboy delivered the Telegraph with ‘Sorry, no Gaurdian’ written on it (no irony intended, I assume). Sorry if … Read more >>
For a second time, some of the contributors to this blog, Times for the Times and RTC3 are meeting in a London pub. The chosen venue is “Shaw’s Booksellers” in St Andrew’s Hill, near Blackfriars, on … Read more >>
This Everyman was harder for me than the run of the mill. Me or the puzzle? Not sure why: no “dictionary words” per se. Only one reference that I needed to look up … Read more >>
I bow to no-one in my admiration of Nimrod, despite the fact that some his stuff goes completely over my head, but I don’t think this was one of his better efforts. I … Read more >>
Solving time: 14:48 The preamble to this puzzle read: “Lands here are 4-ed [linked] (as our non-PC forebears would think) by 14 down [‘The missing’].” The grid contains eight countries. At first I … Read more >>
Rover, is another Guardian setter who overuses the cryptic definition. Some of the definitions here just weren’t cryptic or were very obvious. When Rover stayed away from this device there were some good … Read more >>
A very enjoyable crossword if not very difficult. Mostly charades with partial anagrams and a couple of long anagrams thrown in. Quite a few containers and reversals but that didn’t really strike me … Read more >>
Solving time: 3-4 hours An nice example of a fairly standard advanced cryptic puzzle type – “entries mangled according to a theme to be identified”. In this case, there are some thematic entries … Read more >>
Well, just a personal record. I’ve done the great majority of the Indy cryptics since the paper first appeared in 1986 and this was my fastest solve ever. Last year I broke my … Read more >>
Solving time approx. 20 minutes. Araucaria again. I got him last week too, on the Wednesday. What have I done to deserve this? Actually most of it wasn’t too bad today, although I … Read more >>
This seemed slightly easier than Nestor’s previous puzzles but no less brilliant. Practically every clue reads perfectly and the construction of the wordplay is absolutely spot-on throughout. There’s a couple that I didn’t … Read more >>
Oh dear, it had to happen. Did the crossword, pottered around the house all morning while someone fixed the broken drain that’s been causing a stink in my house, checked the site a … Read more >>
Lots of fire and explosions today. The usual quality from Dac but with one clue leaving me perplexed as to its definition. Across 1 AXING — A+XI+N.G. — team is often XI, as … Read more >>
Another tour de force from Virgilius. Each row containing a part of the body in approximately correct order from the head to the feet. Despite this constraint, the remainder of the grid contains normal … Read more >>
Solving time: 20’ Rather fast for me for a Brendan. Though I didn’t get all the wordplays while solving and had to rely on definitions. There are a couple of themelets here (war … Read more >>