It’s the last Sunday of the month, so here’s the regular puzzle based on topical events – I nearly missed this one as it hasn’t yet appeared in the FT app, but it is available to solve online or download and print from ft.com/crossword as usual.
Day: 27 October 2024
Guardian Quiptic 1,301/Picaroon
The piratical one is good at this Quiptic stuff, isn’t he? I judged that this was nicely pitched and carefully clued; but as always, what the beginners and improving solvers thought is much … Read more >>
Independent on Sunday 1,809/Stamp
I very much enjoyed solving and blogging this Sunday’s Independent puzzle by Stamp. Lots of great surface readings, all clearly clued and with one or two nice twists. I can get on with … Read more >>
Everyman 4,070 by Everyman
Everyman blog time again – dog walked, pub located, beer & dog biscuits being consumed so here goes.
Best Sellers by Fez
It’s Joyce again. As time was against us, I did not solve the puzzle before blogging so I cannot comment on how difficult or easy the puzzle was. There were a couple of words that I didn’t know – one of which I would have struggled to solve from the clue.
Click HERE for a pdf of the puzzle.
S&B York 2024 – a puzzle by Exit
Greetings from York! This puzzle can be downloaded here.
York S&B 2024, a puzzle by Coot
This is Coot’s contribution to the York S&B. Unfortunately he is unable to attend this year.
A PDF of the puzzle can be found here:
Sloggers and Betters by POSTMARK
Postmark (STAMP) is now a regular setter in the Indy. When the puzzle came in for blogging, I (Joyce) was next in line from the small team.
Write the real title here by Komornik
After scheduling this blog, I decided that I had to come back and add something – it is our 800th blog on 225!
It’s Joyce blogging again. I have to admit that I did not attempt to solve the puzzle before blogging. Last year Komornik set a puzzle which took us ages to unravel and we had to cheat at the end. We found many of the clues were challenging to say the least. As Bert and I have ended up blogging five puzzles between us, I decided to look at the parsings for each clue as I progressed through the blog and work out whether I would have had any chance of solving them.
So…. here’s the false title that Komornik submitted with the puzzle plus the preamble:
Puzzle that conveys vital information, contrarily expressed as a number of letters (for want of a proper title) by Komorník
All seven-letter entries (one thematically always found abbreviated) and 40% of five-letter entries exemplify what has often entertained us (three words, ignoring an article). All other clues contain a surplus word, whose initial letters define the theme. Solutions include a trade name and several very well-known proper names. You may, if you wish, write the real title here:
and the puzzle…
S&B 2024 – another by A. Bailey
Adrian Bailey (not sure if he has a setting monicker) has kindly sent a couple of puzzles for the York S&B meet, even though he couldn’t make the event himself. This one could be said to be ‘on the money’… (For anyone who wasn’t there but would like to try the puzzle before reading the blog, it should be at this link here)
S&B 2024 – Dalibor
Dalibor, aka Sil van den Hoek, a doyen of this site, has sent a puzzle for the delectation and delight of the S&B 2024 crowd, even though he won’t be able to join the festivities…much missed… (For anyone who wasn’t there but would like to try the puzzle before reading the blog, it should be at this link here)
Azed 2731
Azed provides us with a plain puzzle this week. Azed seems to have been scouring the dictionary for alternative spellings this week. I counted six entries that were not … Read more >>
S&B 2024 by A. Bailey
The puzzle may be found here:
https://www.fifteensquared.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Armistice-4Oct10_Redacted.pdf
This puzzle definitely felt like a change of pace for me, with some of the cluing outside the conventions of the puzzles that I normally solve. There were a couple of solutions that I could not parse without the setter’s explanations, which was not so much the fault of the clues as a result of my lack of the requisite GK.