Guardian 25,208 Prize Puzzle by Araucaria
My first blog for Fifteenquared. This being the New Year prize puzzle I was expecting an Araucaria special, but we have a plain puzzle instead. As always with Araucaria I started slowly, but … Read more >>
Month: January 2011
Financial Times 13,585 / Mudd
A gentle, entertaining puzzle with high number of double definition clues, many that we need to “lift and separate” to read the definitions independently (27A, 5D). The bottom half of the grid makes … Read more >>
Guardian 25,213 / Araucaria
Thanks again for the swap, Mark! 😉 I found some parts of this a bit tricky, so there were several smiles and ahas, for me, when the penny did drop. There was a … Read more >>
Independent 7559 / Nimrod
The call goes out for a Friday sub and I stick my hand up thinking I’d get a workmanlike Phi, then Phi appears on a Thursday with an Epiphany themed doozy that gave … Read more >>
Enigmatic Variations 946: Message by Rustic
A basic 13×13 grid here with a couple of nicks in the outer edge. Clues are given in symmetrical pairs, and every clue has one of its letters moved to the perimeter. A … Read more >>
Financial Times 13,584 / Styx
A quick-quick-slow kind of puzzle today. Plenty of easy or familiar items on the menu to binge on early, before finishing off with a smattering of sublimely tricky or unhelpfully-defined answers. Across 1 CONTEMPT … Read more >>
Independent 7,558 / Phi – snow on the line?
A tricky puzzle, since so many of the entries revolved around one clue, which for those of us working on the basis of the electronic version alone was merely described as a 17-word entry, … Read more >>
Independent 7558 / Phi – A message from Eimi
We have another situation today in which the numeration for the very long answer can’t be given due to software constraints. If you’d like to give the information on fifteensquared again it’s: (1,4,6,2,3,2,2,4,3,5,4,2,3,4,3,1,7).
Guardian 25,212 / Bonxie
A very impressive puzzle from Bonxie, where every down clue and three across clues begin with “Left”. I think there a couple of slightly problematic clues, which I’ve mentioned below, but it’s quite … Read more >>
Financial Times 13,577 / Cinephile’s Christmas Jumbo
I was rather surprised to find that this Cinephile Jumbo took me no longer than some of the ‘normal’ FT puzzles despite the greater number of clues. This was perhaps due to twigging … Read more >>
Financial Times 13,578 – Dante
Monday Prize Crossword first appeared on-line on 28 December 2010 Dante has this last prize and prized puzzle in 2010 … I just wonder whether any FT subscriber would take time off from … Read more >>
Independent 7,557/Dac
Happy New Year all. A perfect way to start 2011 in my book – a well-crafted, elegantly clued Dac puzzle. I found the SW corner a little tough here and the anagram at … Read more >>
Financial Times 13,583 / Cinephile
A bit of a mixed bag from Cinephile today with some very easy clues, some a little more tricky and one where I think an error has been made in the wordplay. There … Read more >>
Guardian 25,211 – Gordius
Another year, another Gordius.. In the spirit of the season I can say that I mostly enjoyed this, but as usual I have a few niggles, and there a couple of places where … Read more >>
Inquisitor 1157 – Please… by Eddie – 18 December 2010
The preamble stated that the first words of a traditional verse are spelled out by single extra letters generated by the wordplay in each down clue, in order. The perimeter (clockwise, in which … Read more >>