Genius 141 / Vlad

The preamble told us that in 11 clues the wordplay produces a letter surplus to the solution. In order, these 11 letters provide a cryptic definition for 10 other solutions, represented in their … Read more >>

AZED 2,234

I managed to charge through this pretty quickly at my desk while pretending to work (and listening to The Rolling Stones on YouTube — unrelated I think). A couple of wordplays still to resolve which I fully plan to… (best laid plans…)

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Independent 8,882 by Phi

Every Friday we have the same thing, a very satisfactory and pleasant crossword from Phi, with few if any points of controversy. Initially, when I saw the answer ‘raindrop’ I thought Phi was balancing out all those rock music Ninas we so often have, by having nicknames of pieces of music, possibly just by Chopin, but either he is, and I am ignorant, or this was a false lead.

As usual with Phi for some reason, I was slow to start but then made steady progress.

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Guardian Cryptic 26536 Chifonie

(Please click here for this same blog but with a picture quiz added. Please do NOT post hereinbelow any comment relating to the picture quiz. Thank you.)   A nice puzzle, quite straightforward I … Read more >>