Hihoba

A new setter this week – eXternal (not quite sure why the strange capitalisation).  Standard rubric with wordplay leading to extra letters which led to a quote and the quoter. We had to … Read more >>

Wow Lato! Another in this latest series of superb Inquisitors. A long and confusing preamble only became clear as the last element of the puzzle fell into place. It said that all of … Read more >>

Ferret’s only previous crossword in this series was 1213 earlier this year – Twenty blocks and twenty bars – and the rubric mentioned 90 degree symmetry. This time it was the more conventional … Read more >>

  This is Shark’s fourth offering in this series. One of his previous puzzles was last Christmas, with gift, toys and presents under the tree. This was a nicely constructed puzzle with straightforward … Read more >>

Entertaining stuff from Samuel. I do enjoy crosswords that give a laugh or a grin (or even a wry smile) and this gave quite a few! The unclued lights represented two items which … Read more >>

Two Schadenfreudes in a row for Hihoba to blog. Another mercifully brief preamble told us that there was a letter to be removed from each clue, always leaving a word but not necessarily … Read more >>

Despite the designation “by Schadenfreude” in the title, the puzzle element of this turned out to be quite straightforward. The preamble was mercifully brief, telling us that a title would appear in the … Read more >>

Struggled with this one Nimrod. Bit of a quiz if you ask me! We had to find four items which are members of an extensive list “each unique in the same way” (Huh?). … Read more >>

Baffling rubric until the penny eventually dropped after four days of cogitation. This difficult crossword concerned a “meeting” between A Crosse and D Owen. The difficulty arose from a number of sources. There … Read more >>

A relatively straightforward offering by Samuel, whose last puzzle in this series was on Christmas Eve 2011. Five characters filled five of the eight unclued entries. The sixth character was to have a … Read more >>

Reasonable start this week, but a tricky finish. We were asked to identify a “joiner” from “components” deduced from the unclued entries, and from misprinted letters in 15 clues. There were also blank … Read more >>

This gave us a good workout and a dialogue between Ba and me (Hi) eventually sorted everything out with one minor exception in 20A. We had three parts to consider according to the rubric. 1) … Read more >>

We had to find a writer (1,4) and a work by him, with the first line in the top and bottom spaces and a mournful cry elsewhere in the diagram. The clues were … Read more >>

A nice seasonal puzzle with some tricky cluing. I started at the top left (unusually) which turned out to be very helpful, as the most important theme word was at 1A. DA?E? led readily … Read more >>

I found this one – let’s not beat about the bush – very difficult. Without my laptop and Chambers on-line I would never have finished it! I have to say that the whole … Read more >>