Hihoba

Another corker to go with the last six inquisitors. All really challenging and extremely enjoyable (always helped by the occasional win – 1199 in my case!) A long and complex preamble told us … Read more >>

I found this one “challenging” (i.e. very difficult!). It was worth persevering with, and would have been much easier if you spotted the theme early, which I didn’t. Had I read the paper … Read more >>

Simple rubric starting with the encouraging words “Having completed the grid”. So no immediate need to think about the puzzle element, get on with the clues. The answers were pretty straightforward but we … Read more >>

Has Charybdis been on holiday to Cornwall recently? If so he set a corking crossword while there! The rubric was pretty complex and, having read through it and not understood much, I cracked … Read more >>

After reading how disappointed Chalicea was that HolyGhost found her puzzle easy, I’m a bit hesitant about saying that this was one of my quicker Inquisitor solves. The clues seemed very straightforward, and … Read more >>

It was relatively easy to identify the Guru of the title, less so to complete this multi-threaded puzzle. First there were two completely barred off squares, one preceded the IKE of ikebana, the … Read more >>

Having failed even to start the blank grid in 1177 by Phi, my heart sank when I saw another blank grid for this week’s puzzle. I find these difficult to do, but even harder to blog! … Read more >>

The title told us that we were in the weddings arena, though the proximity of the forthcoming royal nuptials seemed to be less of a help than I expected. My first solution was … Read more >>

A new Setter! I haven’t come across Rasputin before, and a very tricky crossword it was too! There was an error in the rubric, which was a bad start, but it was pretty … Read more >>

I found this offering by Loda pretty tricky. Due to my lack of knowledge of statistics and statistical modelling, the clue in the title utterly passed me by, and I had completed the … Read more >>

I started this blog before having solved the puzzle element of this week’s offering by Ikela, so we’ll start with the clued elements. The rubric told us that wordplay in all but six … Read more >>

Stunning puzzle with lots of elements from Lato. First the rubric: long and complex but, once understood, entirly fair and correct. We had eight clues with two consecutive redundant words which clued “pairs”. … Read more >>

I’m stepping into the shoes of Peter B for this blog as he has work-related problems that prevent him from spending time on this activity. Being retired I don’t, thank goodness! Most of … Read more >>

At first glance the rubric seemed pretty complicated, involving words entered normally, as anagrams and in unlocated places in the grid. A quick look at the “Unlocated” clues gave me AIT for the first … Read more >>

I found this pretty tricky and it took several hours over three days to complete. Some interesting words, two of which (ZARI and NIKAB) are only in the latest version of Chambers.  Google helped … Read more >>