NealH

The usual well-constructed puzzle from Quixote. There was nothing very controversial – maybe a couple of slightly unusual words in 21 and 4, but they were easy enough to work out from the … Read more >>

It’s fairly unusual to see a DAC on a Monday, although he did skip the usual Wednesday slot a couple of weeks ago, so I suppose this is making up for it. This … Read more >>

Lots of neat, well-written clues as ever from Quixote. I particularly liked the &lit of 6 and and the apposite surface reading of 22. Across 1. Bill had a meal eating dog? True! … Read more >>

I’ve not come across Alchemi before, but this seemed to be very much in the tradition of reasonably gentle Quixote Monday puzzles. There were a few where the wordplay took a bit of … Read more >>

I found this Quixote one of the more difficult ones. There were plenty of easier starter clues but a number of more obscure words meant the bottom part of the puzzle was quite … Read more >>

* = anag < = reversed [] = letters removed There was a Quentin Tarantino theme to this puzzle, although no knowledge of the films was required. I found it fairly tough, with … Read more >>

After some tough puzzles last week, things were back to normal with a straightforward Quixote. Across 1. Beauty treatment? Female having a cold one gets a line reduced (6) Facial F(emale) = a … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism I struggled to get into this pop culture-heavy offering and thought one or two of the clues were pretty tricky (especially 1 across). There … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism A fairly standard Quixote, mostly easy but with a couple of clues that held me up a little.  Across 1 Castor: Cast + Or … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism An unusual Monday outing for Punk, which was a themed puzzle, the theme being people and things from Brighton. Since I didn’t know any … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism A fairly standard outing from Quixote, mostly on the easy side, although the parsing of one of the clues (2 down) completely defeats me.  … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism My criticism of Nimrod is that he sometimes does seem to go out of his way to make the puzzle as difficult as possible, … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism I thought this was a slightly harder Quixote with a stronger than normal use of proper nouns, not all of them very topical (e.g. … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism If you’re fed up to the back teeth with the Olympics, there was no respite today from the Independent with another Games themed puzzle. … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism This was just the right level to be fairly challenging to less experienced solvers, although unlikely to cause problems for the more experienced. As … Read more >>