Andrew

I started off on Everyman in The Observer, and began solving Azed while I was a student at Cambridge (reading maths) shortly after it started. I do the Guardian puzzle most days and others sporadically. In real life I work as a software developer (still in Cambridge), and for non-crossword recreation play the piano and am involved in amateur theatre.

Azed 2112

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The first thing that struck me about this puzzle was the unusually open grid, with wide open unbarred spaces, especially in the NE and SW corners. The two 13-letter across answers have only … Read more >>

Guardian 25,791 – Rufus

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A typical Rufus, with the usual helpings of cryptic and double definitions, but also (I think) rather more anagrams than usual: these and others gave me a good start, letting the rest be … Read more >>

Guardian 25,787 – Philistine

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A puzzle of varied styles from Philistine, with clues ranging from the conventional, almost banal (e.g. 9ac, 10ac, 19ac) to the devious 17dn and the bizarre 1dn. Fortunately the easy ones provided enough … Read more >>

Guardian 25,782 – Orlando

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This somehow didn’t feel like a typical Orlando while I was solving it, especially with the long answer at 5,11,18, which is more the sort of thing one expects from Araucaria or Paul. … Read more >>

Azed 2106

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A puzzle in the middle of the Azed scale of difficulty, with no particularly involved clue construction, but a few rather obscure references needing lookups in Chambers and elsewhere. As always, quality clueing … Read more >>

Guardian 25,763 – Gordius

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A lot of very simple anagrams and some other clues that let me write in the answer almost without thinking made this a very quick solve, and not very satisfying. As often with … Read more >>

Guardian 25,758 – Orlando

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The usual high-quality stuff from Orlando. Nothing particularly hard, but there are several definitions that are nicely tucked away in smooth surface readings.           Across 1. REGULUS LUGER reversed … Read more >>

Guardian 25,753 – Araucaria

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An enjoyable puzzle with a mini-theme that was up my street, making it mostly an easy stroll for me, except that I can’t fully explain the crucial 3,12 (though getting the answer was … Read more >>

Azed 2100

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I was wondering whether there might be some kind of special for this, as the first round(ish) number since 2000 and happening to coincide with a competition week, but it turned out to … Read more >>