bridgesong

Born in 1947, I remember as a child tackling the Skeleton in my father’s Sunday Express before moving on to The Times at school with a classmate. For 20 years or so after leaving school I had no time for crosswords but started again in the 1980s, teaching myself to do Azed (with help from Don Manley’s Crossword Manual). Now retired after a career as a lawyer which culminated in appointment as a District Judge, I do the Guardian every Saturday, usually with my friend and neighbour Timon (who introduced me to fifteensquared). I also enter the Azed monthly competitions but have never done better than the very occasional VHC. More recently I have become a subscriber to the Magpie magazine and submit entries monthly, without yet winning a pen. My pseudonym comes from two of my other leisure interests, bridge and singing.

Azed 1906: Morse coda

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Apologies for the late publication of this blog. I’m a last minute substitute and pressure of work prevented me from filing it yesterday as I had intended. The puzzle itself was an elegant … Read more >>

Azed 1902: grin and snore

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A straightforward puzzle this week, with a fair proportion of unfamiliar words.  Nevertheless, it’s worth making the point that Azed puzzles can in fact be easier to solve than a daily cryptic, as … Read more >>

Azed 1886

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Solving time : about a day (but it was my birthday, so I was distracted).  Loads of unfamiliar words this week, and some excellent surface readings (e.g. 19 across).  I found the south-west … Read more >>

Azed 1881

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I offered to do this blog, then discovered that I had thrown out my copy of the solution, which doesn’t yet appear to be available on the Guardian/Observer website, so I had to … Read more >>