Guardian Prize 26,436 / Paul

An enjoyable puzzle from Paul, with some typical Pauline clues – and this time I’m not talking risqué. I found it pretty straightforward, apart from the parsing of 16dn, which took about as … Read more >>

Independent 8,787 by Phi

As usual with Phi I was a little slow to get started as few answers seemed to be obvious, but once going it all seemed clear enough. And then I came to a long halt with the last three, 21ac, 19dn and 22dn, which wouldn’t budge. The somewhat unusual sense of ‘clipped’ is my excuse; although it isn’t perhaps all that unusual, being the first item in the second Chambers definition.

In the end it was the usual very pleasant Phi experience. Lots of single-letter abbreviations here: is this a theme? (l = league, d = depth, f = farthing, n = note, E = European, r = runs, h = hard, n = name, m = millions, o = old, s = son, again n = note, and perhaps others I’ve missed.)

The unches at the top and the bottom spell out two words which no doubt send us to some series of books that escape my experience.

Definitions underlined.

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Financial Times 14,803 by BRADMAN

It is Friday, and it is Bradman at the FT so no surprises there. The Don serves up another delectable offering with an excellent mix of smooth surfaces and ingenious constructions. Quite an enjoyable solve with the SE quadrant nearly being a showstopper for me. There are a couple of clues though which I have a minor quibble about but nothing significant.

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