Never knowingly undersolved
Another accessible but well-constructed Monday puzzle from Quixote. Lots of different devices, including some clever anagrams, and some nice story-telling surfaces. Abbreviations cd cryptic definition dd double definition (xxxx)* anagram anagrind … Read more >>
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 … Read more >>
I’d hesitate to say this was an especially easy week for Beelzebub, but I did manage to complete the puzzle unaided, in one sitting, which is something of a rarity. It would be … Read more >>
Nick: For a special, I found this rather easy, so 6/10 for me, but 9/10 for the cleverness. Incidently, this blog took me longer to do than the puzzle 😀 First, the preamble, so … Read more >>
Lorraine: Good morning happy solvers, Nice Sunday morning solve with nothing too taxing. First in was 6dn and last in was 4ac. Favourites this week are; 11, 13 and 22ac, 1, 6, 14 and … Read more >>
An IoS towards the harder end of the spectrum, I thought. There were quite some answers that had to be teased out, including the 4 long anagrams, of which I found 8 down … Read more >>
So a puzzle with a title of Difficulty – but no indication of its level of difficulty. Nine letters are missing from the subsidiary indications and this then needs to be used to … Read more >>
Nurse! My medication, please! This fiendishly clever and involved Saturday Prize puzzle from Nimrod almost reduced me to a gibbering wreck…or rather to more of one… Where to start? Several linked clues; some … Read more >>
We thought this was a pretty tough prize puzzle, in the context of those from the previous few weeks. That was probably largely due to a theme that was difficult for us, and … Read more >>
This was another excellent crossword by Redshank full of nice twists and turns, including the inevitable subtraction anagrams. After today’s FT blooper one cannot expect Jed to write another blog. Therefore I am happy to … Read more >>
Masterly polychromic strokes Across 9 ONE ACROSS (not in this puzzle) (OCEAN)* ROSS (sea) 10 AZURE (heraldic colour) sounds like HAS YOUR (common) 11 PURPURE (heraldic colour) PUR[e] PURE (clean) … Read more >>
We’re always pleased to solve a Phi-day puzzle at the end of the week. We started off thinking that this was a fairly easy puzzle until we ground to a halt about two-thirds … Read more >>
The theme centred on 24A made the puzzle seem daunting at first, but it yielded gracefully in the end.
Such goings-on for a Thursday morning – but what a lot of fun! It took a while to get into but, fortunately, there were a few easy clues to help the solving along. … Read more >>
Even in the FT there’s no escaping the 50th anniversary of …