Never knowingly undersolved
So, were you blown away? Or mind blown? All clues contain an extra word. In four cases, this is a synonym or generalisation of one of the otherwise unclued three-letter entries, which when … Read more >>
A challenging puzzle with lot of parsing left over at the end. Favourites were 10ac, 14ac, and 2dn. Thanks to Paul.
Crosophile is an Independent setter who has appeared a few times every year since 2011. He also sets barred crosswords for the Inquisitor and Enigmatic Variations where fifteensquared first mentions him in 2007. … Read more >>
Maybe I have just had a long day, but I found this puzzle very challenging to complete, especially the top half. I think that a majority of the clues were: guess first, parse later, which is fine, unless it is my turn to write up the blog.
MOO kicks off the week…
Anto has the Quiptic for us this morning. I have blogged enough of his puzzles to have a good idea what kind of reaction this one will receive, but I will keep my … Read more >>
The new editor’s policy for Mondays seems to be to alternate Vulcan with setters who we haven’t previously been used to seeing starting the week. This puzzle was perhaps on the gentler end … Read more >>
A delightful puzzle from Bluth, which I really enjoyed solving and blogging. Some great surface readings and a wide variety of subject matter to test solvers. Abbreviations cd cryptic definition dd double definition … Read more >>
Sunday and time to walk the dog, find the pub and solve the crossword
It’s always a relief when blogging duty coincides with an Azed plain, because his specials, which are especially good, always take me ages to do. I admire his grid construction: OK some of the words are pretty wild, but they are all there in Chambers so far as I can see, and to fit words into a 12×12 grid where there are four 11-letter words abutting each other in pairs seems brilliant. 5 and 8dn are presenting problems, which I’m sure will be explained to me.
Definitions underlined in crimson. Anagrams indicated (like this)* or *(this), with their indicators in italics.
Another sound Sunday offering from Hoskins, who is becoming a regular in the IoS slot. Abbreviations cd cryptic definition dd double definition cad clue as definition (xxxx)* anagram anagrind = anagram indicator [x] … Read more >>
Serpent gives us today’s challenge.
Puzzle from the Weekend FT of January 13, 2024
I have blogged a number of Tramp’s crosswords in the Inquisitor, but as an irregular Guardian blogger, I am not sure whether I have blogged a puzzle by him in this newspaper before. … Read more >>
It’s the end of the week and once again, we have a Phi to solve. No complaints at all.