Financial Times 14,973 by ARTEXLEN

My first time blogging this setter. A solid challenge from Artexlen – one that was eventually solved after some intriguing trysts with word play. I would have liked to see some of the long-winded clues be more crisp. Speaking of which 4d was incredibly so – a 17 letter clue for a 14 letter solution! 🙂 Thanks Artexlen – it wasnt easy going but totally worth it !!

Read more >>

Independent 8,959 by Morph

A nice, crossword from Morph today. I found it slightly on the hard side, though now that I’ve done the blog I can’t see why. The (possibly) CDs round the middle of the acrosses were a bit of a problem, but everything else seemed to fall into place well enough.

Some would make a very mild criticism of the answers in the grid: 18dn ends with the word OFF, as does 25ac. Possibly not the best: I did 18dn and then couldn’t believe that 25ac also ended with the same word, but there aren’t many possibilities for _ _ F.

Definitions in italics.

Read more >>