kenmac

There are four unclued answers, all fairly long, and all made up of multiple words. It seems that our setter, Loda, takes these four phrases seriously. Then there are six symmetrically placed answers … Read more >>

The preamble, rather vaguely, tells us that we need to highlight 23 squares and blank out 1 row. These items depict a musical reference and express the sentiment leading directly to the return … Read more >>

There are nine unclued entries. Eight of them represent eleven from a set and the ninth represents the last line of a quote formed by superfluous words in across clues. In the same … Read more >>

The blog now arriving on platform 152 is the late running 1183 from kenmac. What a tough offering from Samuel!  This puzzle came out on the day of the Sloggers and Betters do … Read more >>

Unusually, I think, the title virtually gives away the theme.   Certainly I wasn’t at all surprised when the theme revealed itself. Twelve of the clues lead to an extra letter which spell … Read more >>

The perimeter is clued thematically while the numbered clues (to the remainder of the grid) have a redundant letter in the wordplay, which spells out a message indicating what to do with the … Read more >>

What rotten luck, to have to blog a reasonably difficult Inquisitor in a week where I had to drive to both Galway and Dublin for “all day” appointments.  When I finally got time … Read more >>

With apologies to Kea, I have to say that I didn’t really enjoy this puzzle 🙁 but I’ll try not to let it influence my blog too much. The preamble tells us that we’re looking … Read more >>

A nice easy preamble for a change. We’re told that six entries are clued without definition and all the other clues generate an extra letter. The extra letters generate a “line”, which identifies … Read more >>

Ah, Schadenfreude, probably my favourite Inquisitor compiler!  I tend to find the clues seem very hard on first or second reading but on third or fourth (or fifth, etc.) reading, they start to reveal all. We’re told … Read more >>

What a great puzzle. If it wasn’t so cold, I’d take my hat off to Charybdis! The preamble is very confusing. Firstly we’re told that a 5-letter thematic character has to be found in … Read more >>

This puzzle contained a device I’d never seen before, which, at first glance looked like it was going to prove troublesome. In the end, however, it was fairly easy-going. Each entry had to rebound off … Read more >>

Inquisitor 1146 Another fairly complex preamble. In essence it says that twelve entries are not clued in the conventional way. Four of them are clued by single extra words in four clues. Further, … Read more >>

The preamble tells us that redundancies have been made in 12 entries and their clues. My first thought was that we were probably looking for various standard crossword “workers” (bee, hand, ant, man, … Read more >>

This puzzle has an interesting preamble – “a significant minority of clues contain a misprint …” First thought is “What on Earth does that mean?” It could be anywhere between 1 and 16 … Read more >>