When Dac is the day’s setter the preamble to the blog tends to contain the word ‘usual’. Justifiably so. Such good surfaces, nearly every one of which paints a little picture without compromising the quality of the clue.
Month: June 2015
Guardian 26,594 / Picaroon
Once again I get to blog a Picaroon puzzle and I’m certainly not complaining. We’re still not being allowed to forget the election: there are a number of political references here, with some … Read more >>
Inquisitor 1388: To All the Girls from Triton
A new setter this week. “Hello, …” Preamble: The definition parts of thirty-one clues contain a superfluous letter which should be removed before solving. Read in clue order, the three discrete groups … Read more >>
Financial Times 14,952 by JASON
A pleasant Tuesday challenge.
Guardian 26,593 by Puck
Lots of fun – ended up filling the grid with quite a few clues unparsed, but it was well worth the effort to unravel them afterwards. Thanks Puck – many favourites…
Independent 8939 / Radian
This is our 200th blog!! (exclamation!) We haven’t blogged a Radian since last September – and this was a reasonably straightforward and enjoyable solve, let down only by the reference to … Read more >>
Araucaria Documentary
The Guardian has just released a documentary recorded shortly before John Graham’s death in 2013. It can be found here. This page also has links to some other related articles which you may … Read more >>
Guardian Quiptic 812/Moley
Moley has transformed herself into Mary Poppins this morning. If you talk to setters, they will say that compiling ‘easy’ puzzles is actually the hardest thing to do, because you’ve almost got … Read more >>
Guardian 26,592 – Rufus
I found this a bit harder than usual for a Rufus, with a few quibbles, as detailed below. Thanks to the setter. Across 1. ATTACHE CASE Stick … Read more >>
Independent 8938/eXternal
A good puzzle from eXternal to start the Indy week. His cluing style can be rather involved, and since I am a fan of concision, he’s probably never going to be my favourite … Read more >>
Cyclops 548: Runcible spooning
A one-pint puzzle for me this week (and that was the first pint, which goes down quickly). Writing the blog took much longer than solving the puzzle, which had no real surprises. I … Read more >>
Independent on Sunday 1,319 by Poins
Lovely surfaces this week from Poins. I must pay more attention to them in future. Quite a tough challenge too, with 9 down being my undoing. I felt fortunate to remember Jeremy Bentham, … Read more >>
Beelzebub 1317
I found this tricky in places, possibly because 60% of the clues had an answer or part of the wordplay (or both in some cases) that was a word/term which I hadn’t met … Read more >>
Everyman 3,582
An easier Everyman than the last one I blogged
AZED 2,243
A couple of downright obscure words in here but on the whole quite amenable given enough time to think about it. Thank you AZED.