mhl

Although I had some early attempts to solve cryptic crosswords as a teenager, it was only in my late 20s (and mostly thanks to fifteensquared!) that I became reasonably competent as a solver. However, despite being a slow solver I found that I had a knack for parsing clues, and volunteered to do a weekly blog post on the Guardian crossword. After a few years, I had to drop down to being on the Guardian Prize rota, but eventually found that with two young children to look after, I didn't have time even for that. I'm still hoping to resume blogging more regularly when they're a little older!

Guardian 25,951 / Crucible

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Not long after Araucaria’s Wagner / Verdi themed bank holiday special, we have a high quality Wagner / Poulenc themed puzzle from Crucible, timed close to the 200th anniversary of Wagner’s birth, which … Read more >>

Guardian 25,927 / Crucible

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Apologies for the late post – we didn’t complete this last Saturday morning, and I managed to forget that I was meant to be writing a post about it. Anyway, we found this … Read more >>

Guardian 25,879 / Paul

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A very entertaining prize crossword from Paul, including a hilarious homonym (sort of :)) for a famous nonsense word. We actually met Paul (John Halpern) a couple of weeks ago at the London stop … Read more >>

Guardian 25,831 / Paul

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It’s always nice to have a crossword from Paul to post about, and I nowadays only get that chance when he occasionally gets a prize puzzle slot. We found this a satisfying solve, … Read more >>

Guardian 25,808 / Araucaria

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An excellent puzzle: cleverly constructed and with about the right level of difficulty for a Saturday, we thought. The rubric for this puzzle read “Across solutions are 11, when it comes to the … Read more >>

Guardian 25,760 / Araucaria

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We thought this was a pretty tough prize puzzle, in the context of those from the previous few weeks. That was probably largely due to a theme that was difficult for us, and … Read more >>

Guardian 25,712 / Bonxie

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We found this a difficult prize puzzle – it’s themed around the words “course” and “set”, both of which have many synonyms. (I seem to remember reading once that “set” is the word … Read more >>

Guardian 25,688 / Paul

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Apologies for the late post on this puzzle – as a result, I won’t waste time in saying much beyond that this was a lovely prize puzzle from Paul with lots of enjoyable … Read more >>

Guardian Genius 107 / Puck

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As is typical of Puck’s puzzles, this challenging Genius has lots of satisfying and intricate wordplay. The across clues are all of the DLM (Definition and Letter Mixture) type, which neither of us … Read more >>

Guardian 25,640 / Araucaria

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Apologies for the lateness of this post. We did the puzzle last weekend, but in the general chaos of moving house, I completely forgot that I was also meant to be writing it … Read more >>