Never knowingly undersolved
I think I may only once have blogged an eXternal puzzle, and goodness me, this one seemed very hard at first. The grid initially filled up very slowly, and from the bottom upwards. … Read more >>
This was a strangely similar solving experience to last week, where I thought I’d finished without resorting to aids, only to find I’d stuffed one up. At 19 down I hadn’t been able … Read more >>
Nick: Some unusually unusual words this week from Azed, with several I did not know of – however a lot of these are clued rather easily with clear word play. I had to use … Read more >>
Lorraine: Good morning happy solvers. It is good to be back. Fairly straight forward this week, in fact I enjoyed the solve very much. My favourite this week was 18ac, very good clue in … Read more >>
Sorry for the late and very rushed blog which meant I had little time to savour this puzzle, just a mad rush to get the puzzle solved and written-up, including much cheating. Thank … Read more >>
My first blog of a new year crossword is a duel with Nestor A grid with lots of letters with little black space – just how I like them. And some lovely fun … Read more >>
Oh dear, a Playfair code-square. And the preamble says that there’s a four-word code phrase, which is going to greatly complicate things. An inauspicious start, so how are things going to work out?
I was really floundering with this grid from Bradman – probably one of the longest times I have spent on an FT puzzle, peppered with words I didn’t know as well (e.g. 14ac, … Read more >>
It’s always a delight to find Puck’s name on a puzzle and this one certainly lived up to expectations. Some of the wordplay was characteristically tricky and there were several penny-dropping moments, producing … Read more >>
A good crossword from Phi today. If there was a Nina in the puzzle it has defeated me. There are a number of words in today’s entry that are not … Read more >>
Much delay this morning I’m afraid. The crossword wouldn’t load because I apparently had too old a version of Java. So I updated that and the same thing happened. I spent ages trying to … Read more >>
A lovely sunny morning, and the usual excellent offering from Redshank. Hurrah. Some excellent definitions here (though 20dn fell a little flat with me), and much splendidly inventive clueing. Thank-you, Redshank. Across 1 … Read more >>
Got through about half of this quickly, then struggled to the end – just wasn’t on the right wavelength for 9ac and 5dn, had never heard of 22,20 and still can’t properly parse … Read more >>
Monday Prize Crossword/Jan 6 Gaff is almost synonymous with topical themed crosswords and this one was no exception: “Ds down today”. Being a non-traditionalist, I had at first no clue what this was … Read more >>
Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of January 4, 2014 I found this a quick and easy puzzle although two clues gave me a little trouble. They were the last two: 23dn (INCUS), … Read more >>