Never knowingly undersolved
The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26192. I was happy to draw an Arachne puzzle to blog, and was not let down. Perhaps not her most intricate offering, but still prime value. Across … Read more >>
It’s a long time since we had a Rufusless Monday: December 9th was the last time Brendan was called up from the bench. If anyone had told me the theme before I began, … Read more >>
Provis appears to be a brand new setter, who has started with a well-judged Quiptic, with nothing too hard for improving solvers. Across 1 Worries over the French game (8) FEARLESS Worries or … Read more >>
Another plain puzzle from Azed, with the usual combination of obscure and familiar words.
As usual, a pleasing and solver-friendly puzzle from Everyman. One or two tricky ones thrown in this morning, I thought, but a bit of head-scratching and some crossing letters saved the day. … Read more >>
This is my first IoS blog and I have not seen Nitsy before. My summary would be: straightforward but difficult. I found the clue construction straightforward, but the cunning definitions and misleading surface meanings meant that finding the solutions was not an easy task at all.
A very entertaining puzzle this week, I thought. There were plenty of unfamiliar terms and spellings, though they were all well signposted, meaning that while a fair bit of confirmation was needed from … Read more >>
This themed puzzle lacked definitions for six solutions, but the wordplay meant that there was no difficulty in working them out.
The Saturday after Valentine’s day and a duel with Anax. Now this was certainly one for a hungry person on a long train journey, where the buffet was closed. Every clue has some reference … Read more >>
In ‘DREAMS’ solvers need to turn one man’s dreams ‘into reality’ by single word removals from various clues, and by erasing 51 cells from the completed grid – so pencils and/or correcting fluid at the … Read more >>
I have commented a couple of times already on what a good week we’ve been having for puzzles – not only in the Guardian – and to round it off with one from … Read more >>
My third time covering Bradman, another great grid to finish the working week with. Thanks Bradman for a pleasurable solve. Just touched down in Tokyo a couple of hours back and immediately got to a wifi enabled location to get my fix for the day.
I was expecting this Friday to bring me a lexical tussle with Phi, and so it did. This was a puzzle I was expecting to whizz through, having worked out all the longer … Read more >>
Magwitch has been appearing monthly since last September so this is his/her sixth puzzle in the FT. I found this one to be on the easy side but this did not detract from the enjoyment … Read more >>