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 28,464 / Crucible

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I’m a big fan of Crucible’s puzzles: sound cluing and lovely smooth surface readings means they’re a pleasure to solve. This one did have a theme, I think… … which is that there … Read more >>

Guardian 28,440 / Paul

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A puzzle full of poets from Paul this week – very enjoyable, and a pretty good difficulty level for a prize puzzle, I thought. Many thanks, Paul! Across 1. Poet feeding rats to … Read more >>

Guardian 28,416 / Paul

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Top quality stuff from Paul, as usual. I got very stuck on this for reasons that I don’t really see in retrospect, so I’m curious about how tricky other people found it! Across … Read more >>

Guardian 28,392 / Paul

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Phew, we found this a tough puzzle to complete! It took several days of coming back to it for us. Very nice cluing as ever, and good “a-ha!” moments when we finally understood … Read more >>

Guardian 28,344 / Paul

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A fun crossword from Paul with a theme of capitals, and a nice thematic device… … which is clues of the form, “Capital of Norway twice 14”. 14 is REBUILT so this is … Read more >>

Guardian 28,321 / Maskarade

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We found this a very enjoyable Christmas puzzle, with the themed clues consistently cleverly done – thanks, Maskarade! The rubric for this puzzle read: Twenty-eight clues lead to solutions that include a theme … Read more >>

Guardian 28,297 / Puck

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Phew, this was hard work! A cleverly themed puzzle from Puck with lots of cross-referenced clues. Thanks to Puck! The rubric for this puzzle was: Special instructions: Ten solutions (not further defined) are … Read more >>

Guardian 28,273 / Puck

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This was a typically clever and amusing puzzle from Puck. I found some of the parsing here quite tricky to work out, but it was definitely satisfying to do so. Thanks, Puck! There’s … Read more >>

Guardian 28,249 / Picaroon

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An entertaining and largely straightforward puzzle from Picaroom – lots of very nice clues to enjoy Eileen mentioned that we have a little boy now, 2 months old today, and I thought you … Read more >>

Guardian 28,177 / Paul

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A fun puzzle with a subtle theme of misdirections. I probably wouldn’t have noticed the theme here, except that I managed to join the first 20 minutes of John Halpern’s zoom call last … Read more >>

Guardian 28,153 / Paul

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I think this puzzle is a masterpiece. The surface reading of every excellent clue in Paul’s D-Day themed puzzle is evocative of the D-Day landings or the allied troops advancing across Europe. Brilliant … Read more >>

Guardian 28,129 / Pasquale

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We’d probably solved 10 clues before realising the “translation” from numbers to letter that was needed, even though in retrospect it should have been one of the first things we thought of! I … Read more >>

Guardian 28,105 / Maskarade

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I think this was a good Easter crossword challenge – definitely tough towards the end, but it felt like a fair challenge to me, and there are lots of nice clues to enjoy. … Read more >>