Independent 7,318/Dac
More brilliance from Dac. As good a set of clues as I’ve seen in a long while, although he’s stumped me on 15D! Across 1 SEPTET – PT. in SEE + T(enor) 4 … Read more >>
Month: March 2010
Guardian 24,972 – Enigmatist
As is often the case with Enigmatist, I found it quite hard to get started on this one. Getting the long linked answers helped a lot, but even then there were some tricky … Read more >>
Financial Times 13,348 / Cinephile
Not a lot to say today. The puzzle didn’t seem to have any sparkle though my feelings about it may have been affected by the high winds and heavy rain that are making … Read more >>
Financial Times 13,347 / Dante
Apologies to all — I did not have a chance to blog until quite late today. No-one familiar with this setter will be surprised at the number of cryptic definitions. However, most of … Read more >>
Independent 7317/Virgilius
Typical brilliance from Virgilius. At first I thought, after predicting confidently that the long word across was going to be SYMMETRICAL, what’s the big deal? All crosswords are symmetrical. Then I saw it … Read more >>
Guardian 24971 – Gordius
Quite an enjoyable set of clues. I like it when compilers consciously try to inject some humour into their clues as we see in 1A, 21A, 26A and 14D. ACROSS 1 FORWARDER He … Read more >>
Indepedent 7316 by Morph
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism Pleasant Monday crossword from Morph with some cracking clues. It wasn’t too difficult, although it took me a while to get going with it … Read more >>
Guardian 24,970 (Brendan)
This has not been a good day for me: two clues I have not decoded and some others that I find unsatisfactory, which probably means I’ve missed something. Across 8 PRIORATE: PR (priest) … Read more >>
Private Eye/Cyclops 413 – Drag me down
Our text today is taken from St Eter of the Managras: Yea, it is harder for a good man to answer the inquiry of Chilcot than a Queen Bee to enter a Myrtle. … Read more >>
Beelzebub 1,048 (21/03/2010)
I’d say this was about average difficulty for Beelzebub, without too much to comment on, other than the unusually large number of abbreviations used – which became evident on formatting the HTML for … Read more >>
Azed 1973
For me, this was very much at the easy end of the Azed spectrum, though I needed a dictionary to check a few words. No special favourite clue this week, though there are … Read more >>
Everyman 3312
This was nice and pretty gentle. The main features worth noting are three 15-letter anagrams and a rather nice long even-letters clue. If I was in a complaining mood I would say that … Read more >>
Enigmatic Variations 906: Recognition by Kruger
Kruger has been setting EV puzzles for over ten years, with a puzzle every four or five months, and the occasional Inquisitor for good measure. I have always found his crosswords fair, but … Read more >>
Guardian 24,963 (Sat 20 Mar)/Araucaria – Daysed and confused
Solving time: 33 mins This was hard, and I was grateful for a couple of hackneyed clues at 12ac (INCA) and 28ac (DETERGENT) to get me going. The theme (abbreviations for days of … Read more >>
Financial Times 13,344 / Falcon
Unfortunately Shuchi is unable to join us today so here is a substitute analysis. A fairly straightforward puzzle in the main but I have to admit that I had never heard of 12ac … Read more >>