Guardian 24199/Orlando – four Ms.
A good puzzle with consistently high quality defs and wordplay (the latter providing clear direction to answers in some cases even when the def was unknown to me). Incidentally had I not known … Read more >>
ilancaron
Guardian 24192/Paul – glittering
(Hope PaulB isn’t reading this since I’m late again). Another fine Paul opus – some surprising and refreshing wordplay (e.g. 7D, 1A) and sly definitions (e.g. 25A). I did this early morning but … Read more >>
Guardian 24185/Araucaria – out of character
Another out of character Araucarian opus – not cross-refs, not long anagrams and actually quite a pleasant puzzle with reasonable surfaces. Across 1 FR(EE)BIE – [w]EE[k] in brief* 5 CAT’S-PAW – had to … Read more >>
Guardian 24178/Rufus – Rufus?
Imagine my confusion when I saw a puzzle by Rufus (almost) without a cryptic definition. Mirroring Araucaria’s recent non-cross-referenced puzzle. Across 1 RE,TORT 5 RE,STRICT – the other meaning of RE this time. … Read more >>
Guardian 24176/Brendan – polyglot
Three alphabets used here: English, Greek and Hebrew though I have a quibble about use of the latter. The preamble made this puzzle quite easy I thought – I suspect it would have … Read more >>
Guardian 24169/Audreus – seperate
Found this hard for Audreus – who I’ve blogged a couple of times in the past. Had to resort to the dictionary to solve the anagram at 7D which looked awfully unlikely in … Read more >>
Everyman 3177/cats and dogs
Last regular Everyman blog… Lots of dogs and a cat or two. None of whom hailed from Scotland as far as I could tell. Across 1 BAS,SET – our first dog 4 DOGGY … Read more >>
Guardian 24161/Araucaria – the full monty
My Sheffield education was provided to me by the movie “The Full Monty” and the occasional Eurosport broadcast of an endless snooker match at The Crucible. Oh yes there are a couple of … Read more >>
Azed 1837/uh-uh
Another mistake from Azed at 1A – the last Azed I did (1831) had one as well. What is the world coming to? I did the first half of this without a dictionary … Read more >>
Guardian 24158/Araucaria – Araucaria?
Not a cross-reference in sight nor a long anagram. Was this really Araucaria? I can’t even detect a theme of sorts. Now that I’ve said this, will someone prove me wrong? Across 1 … Read more >>
Everyman 3175/Gretna
Nice to be welcomed by a fairly straightforward puzzle to ease myself back into cryptic solving – having been on a diet of Les Mots Croises for the past couple of weeks. Scotland … Read more >>
Guardian 24152/Puck – breezy
Not the easiest puzzle to return to from France. Puck and Paul must have gone to the same school of cryptic wizardry if their senses of humor are anything to go by. The … Read more >>
Everyman 3173 – (22 Jul)/JJ
My Scots theory I think has more evidence in the form of Everyman also being Ascot in the Spectator. This week, JJ is Jeremiah Johnson and admirably the two J’s are checked. Some … Read more >>
Guardian 24136/Rufus – oops
Quite a few cryptic definitions again this week – some are good, some less so. But that judgment all depends on your mood I suppose. When I don’t like a CD, I suspect … Read more >>
Guardian 24134/Brendan – musical
I think the theme might be music since 26 clues out of 26 are related to music. Typical fine Brendanian surfaces: sensible and consistent. In order to understand themes, PeterB always recommends taking … Read more >>