Elegant clueing and some very smooth surfaces in today’s offering.
Year: 2018
Guardian 27,587 – Arachne
My second blog of the week, as promised, and it was a delight to find Arachne’s name on today’s puzzle. Mostly not too hard, though 5d took me a while to parse, but … Read more >>
Independent 9933 / Radian
Tuesday is theme day in the Independent, so I went looking for one in Radian’s puzzle I didn’t get it immediately as drama is not one of my strong points. However, … Read more >>
Financial Times 15,935 by ARMONIE
A great but somewhat tricky puzzle this morning.
Independent 9,932 by Tees
An excellent puzzle with some inspired clues.
Guardian Quiptic 978/Anto
Anto has the Quiptic for us this morning. As you will have probably gathered by now, I find this setter on the whole unimaginative and stodgy, but I’m only the … Read more >>
Guardian 27586 – Chifonie
You’ll be getting a double dose of me this week, as I’m standing in for the holidaying Loonapick this morning. This was a typically quick solve from this setter, with mostly straightforward constructions … Read more >>
Everyman 3,747
The Observer crossword from Aug 5, 2018
I went pretty slow through this fine crossword. That was probably because my head was still filled with music after my stay at ….
Independent on Sunday 1485/Kairos
Kairos is a regular, if infrequent, setter for the IoS (and occasionally, in the Indy itself). Here he’s provided a sound and engaging puzzle with some fine surface readings. Just one definition I … Read more >>
Azed 2408
This puzzle continues my run of plain Azeds. It was a competition puzzle this week with competitors required to write a clue for LUNCHEONETTE, the entry at 3 down. There was … Read more >>
Independent 9931 by Punk (Saturday Puzzle 11 August 2018)
A fairly tough Saturday workout from Punk this weekend… …nothing obvious (to me) on the thematic/Nina front, but some complicated parsings and nice surface readings. PORK SCRATCHINGS, GENE SIMMONS and LEAD SINGER among my … Read more >>
Enigmatic Variations 1341 The Wasted Land by Auctor
It may be me but the preamble took a long time to decipher this week. My rough translation – Down clues are normal but some have swapped their definitions and across clues lose … Read more >>
Guardian 27,579 / Enigmatist
On a personal note, this is a nice landmark for me: it’s my 250th post on Fifteensquared, and I’ve been posting here for just over 10 years, starting by writing about one Guardian … Read more >>
Financial Times 15,933 by BRADMAN
A straightforward puzzle today from the Don, thanks to whom for a gentle workout.
Guardian Cryptic 27584 Vlad
The SW quadrant wasn’t so easy as the others. Thanks to Vlad for the challenge. Definitions are underlined in the clues. Across 1, 13 Villain gesturing angrily unlikely to be this (6,10) VIRTUE … Read more >>