Never knowingly undersolved
A tricky one from Gozo. You will need a both a cryptic mindset and good general knowledge to solve this unaided. Thank you Gozo. The grid has 10 fifteen-letter lights, not an easy … Read more >>
Eccles on Wednesday is a regular two-weekly occurrence at the moment. As usual, Eccles gives us smooth surfaces to his clues as well as providing some interesting wordplay devices We … Read more >>
A fun puzzle – I particularly liked 9ac, 21ac, 22ac, 2dn, 18dn, and 22dn. Thanks to Brendan. …hard to miss the theme around Shakespeare’s Othello, with extra links to theatre more generally and … Read more >>
Nimrod is also the editor of the Inquisitor series and tends to set challenging crosswords, so this was always likely to be a difficult solving experience. The preamble stated: that … Read more >>
Solid Tuesday breakfast fare. Tasty and not too meaty. Thanks, Falcon. ACROSS 9 END Close finish (3) Double def. Feels a bit, er, close. 10 CONSOLIDATE Strengthen vulnerable citadel soon (11) … Read more >>
Nutmeg in gentle mode, but with all her usual wit and elegance. Very nice. No theme or Nina that I can see, but I’d be happy to be corrected on that. Thanks to … Read more >>
My goodness that was hard. But not for any reason I can see — all the clues make perfectly good sense in retrospect and seem quite straightforward. It was a really good crossword, … Read more >>
An enjoyable solve from Pan this morning: mostly “easy when you know how”. As always, Pan provides concise clues with some lovely surfaces: my favourite was 1d. There are lots of common crossword … Read more >>
The fifth Indy puzzle from Tees this month – he’s been busy. Some tricky elements but an enjoyable challenge. A few clues required some not-very-general knowledge, particularly 8d which also had a tricky … Read more >>
Apologies for the late post – I wrote this blog a couple of hours ago, but sent it to Fifteensquared as a draft by mistake. An enjoyable Monday morning stroll… … which proves … Read more >>
ZAMORCA kicks off the week… A nice mix of clues from ZAMORCA in this morning’s pangram (which one expects from this setter). Nothing too taxing. 4d and 16d were probably my favourites. Thanks … Read more >>
A very straightforward plain Azed this week, after the previous week’s Carte Blanche. A puzzle whose references span from Greek mythology to Radio 4. As always, I learned something from my explorations into … Read more >>
My sense when solving and blogging this one was that it was rather clunky, with some overlong surfaces. Your experience may have differed, of course. Abbreviations cd cryptic definition dd … Read more >>
Thank you to Hoskins for an amusing puzzle. Definitions are underlined in the clues. Across 1. I am one to tolerate drug-taking naked king (6) BEARER : E(abbrev. for the drug, Ecstasy) contained … Read more >>
A pleasant, if not too taxing, solve from Morph today – no obvious tricks, but it was a treat…(oops, I’m a week early with the Halloween puns…)