A nice easy puzzle form Falcon, though I don’t expect there will be many people will be doing the FT puzzle today. Thank you Falcon.
Month: December 2017
Guardian Cryptic 27,390 by Pasquale
Sorry for the late blog – post-Christmas fuzziness is my only excuse!
Independent 9736 / Dac
Dac takes us away from Christmas-themed crosswords and provides us with his usual smooth surfaces leading to everyday words as entries. You know where you stand with Dac. Rarely is … Read more >>
Inquisitor 1521: The Hard Stuff by Phi
I’m used to blogging Phi puzzles in the Independent, but I think it’s a while since I last blogged an Inquisitor by Phi The preamble told us that “Four across … Read more >>
Guardian Quiptic 945
Never a dull moment with the Grauniad. I wasn’t really expecting a Quiptic on 25th December, and on checking first thing, there wasn’t one. Later in the day, there was: the numbering was … Read more >>
Independent 9,735 by Hoskins
Sorry about the lateness of this blog. But it is Christmas, after all.
Hoskins referred to this puzzle the other day, suggesting that it wasn’t going to be easy; I was very concerned, remembering how difficult he can be: I am one of the slower solvers around but I hardly ever fail to solve crosswords eventually, although the time taken can be embarrassing. However, shortly after Hoskins started to set for the Sunday Times he inflicted on us what was the hardest crossword I have ever done and I had to admit defeat. (But it was football-themed, so that’s my excuse.)
But this one was not in the same league, ho-ho. It was a very pleasant crossword, easily accessible, and with a whole lot of excellent clues. Over the years there must have been a vast number of Christmas-themed crosswords, but without my looking back at them all, I’d say confidently that many of these clues used ideas that have never been used before.
Definitions underlined in maroon; anagram indicators in italics.
Guardian Cryptic 27,389 by Picaroon
The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27389.
Azed 2375
This was a puzzle where I got about half-way through without too much trouble, and then ground to a halt and took much longer to do the rest. Looking back I see that … Read more >>
Independent on Sunday 1452 Phi
There must be good reason for Phi to appear on a Sunday, and in particular, this Christmas Eve (see below). Thanks to Phi. Definitions are underlined in the clues. The theme is Charles … Read more >>
Everyman 3714/17 December
Another sound Everyman puzzle for our Sunday morning education and entertainment. By the time you read this, no creature will be stirring, not even a murine one, so a chance for me to … Read more >>
Independent 9734 by Tees (Sat 23-Dec 2017)
The Independent doing their very best to ignore Christmas. Quite right I look forward to puzzles from Tees – he always sets puzzles on my kind of wavelength. I particularly enjoyed this choice … Read more >>
Guardian Prize 27,382 by Paul
A puzzle with a political theme for my last blog of the year.
Enigmatic Variations No. 1308: Fitting by MynoT
I had the dubious honour of blogging MynoT’s last EV, No 1280 Occasional Item of Furniture which required all answers to be encoded using the element numbers from the periodic table. I hoped … Read more >>
Financial Times 15,739 / Julius
A puzzle in 2 parts today from Julius. An alphabetical jigsaw if you will, with an unmarked grid and a comment that each letter of the alphabet features at least once at the … Read more >>
Independent 9,733 / Hypnos
Hypnos is occupying this week’s Friday slot, where we are used to finding Phi. As far as I can remember, this is my first outing with Hypnos as a blogger. In terms of … Read more >>