Never knowingly undersolved
Lots going on in this preamble: a person appearing as an abbreviation (eh?), clues without definitions, unclued entries, and wordplay leading to an extra letter not entered. Plus something that appears in ODQ, … Read more >>
Solving time: 10 mins As usual with Brummie I had a slow start on this but then got moving once I had some checking letters. A few bits of looseness here and there … Read more >>
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism This seemed much more difficult than the usual Phi and some of the definitions were like the sort of left field thing you’d expect … Read more >>
I’m not sure if this was hard or easy – I made heavy weather of it at first, managing only a few answers in a first session, then raced through the rest on … Read more >>
Mostly straightforward today with some very easy clues and one or two slightly more tricky ones. I have a couple of minor quibbles (24ac & 8dn) but rather liked 11ac, 12ac, 27ac, 6dn … Read more >>
A mixed puzzle, which unfortunately exemplifies why recently I’ve only been doing puzzles from my favourite setters when they come up in the Guardian – there are some excellent clues, but enough dodgy … Read more >>
Is there a conspiracy? My turn to blog and there’s no magazine, again! Still, thanks to a fellow blogger, I appropriated a copy. 🙂 Though I don’t feel I can submit my entry since … Read more >>
This was something of a rope-a-dope experience for me, as I played Foreman to Bradman’s Ali. After charging through the first half – thinking the setter to be unusually tame today – I toiled … Read more >>
Nice to get a Punk puzzle for my first blog of 2010. I found this on the easier side as Thursdays go, though none the less enjoyable for it. A very good spread … Read more >>
Christmas Prize Puzzle on 24 December. “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the grid. Geographic isometry the Reverend had hid.” Thematic clues are denoted below as “grid entry {correspondingly-clued city/country}”. Of … Read more >>
A very enjoyable puzzle from Virgilius. For my own part, found this to be one of the easiest Saturday puzzles I can remember, finishing unaided in roughly 20 minutes – although I don’t … Read more >>
I’ve been very fortunate today – one of my favourite setters, who did not disappoint, giving us a pleasant literary theme, that was not too dominant, with some deft interlinking and flawless cluing, … Read more >>
Oddly, I had just completed a Shark puzzle in Magpie before downloading the EV and discovering that it too was a Shark. I found the Magpie puzzle relatively easy but this one proved … Read more >>
There is something to look for here, referred to after the clue explanations, solving time 22 mins. * = anagram < = reversed ACROSS 7 REMITTANCE (Meter it can)* 9 UREA hidden 10 … Read more >>
On the first pass through the clues, with only a few entries in the grid, I thought this one was going to be difficult. On the contrary, it turned out to be quite … Read more >>