Simon Harding

Another solve of two halves for me, almost literally. I made steady progress in the pub on Sunday evening, but returned home with pretty much exactly 50% of the grid filled, in particular … Read more >>

This seemed to be a solve of two halves for me. Progress was quite smooth until the last half dozen or so entries, whereby I had to hit the Chambers search pretty hard … Read more >>

After several weeks of having to blog puzzles that had me wondering aloud whether I’d forgotten how to even solve them, this was a bit of a relief. This was my first unaided … Read more >>

It comes to something when Beelzebub is the easiest of the three Independent crosswords one has to blog on a given weekend. Of course, “easy” is the wrong word, but at least I … Read more >>

After a few rather challenging weeks on the trot, this puzzle seemed a little more tractable. In fact I was back to my old tricks of thinking I’d finished the whole thing unaided, … Read more >>

Another quite tough week, I found. I had barely half the grid filled before reaching for Chambers. That helped with confirming 16, 24 and 28 and things started to fall in quite smoothly … Read more >>

Another very tough week, I found. Let’s hope it’s not just me losing my faculties. This took quite a lot of looking things up on the internet to finish, not least because there … Read more >>

A very challenging puzzle which saw me struggling to finish it throughout the week. Several (for example 1 across and 17 across) took quite some time to work out, but I hope I’ve … Read more >>

Just the one I can’t explain this week, which admittedly is often the case. 31 across has me beaten so I’ve reproduced the clue. *=anagram, []=dropped, <=reversed. Across 1 GATSBY – TSB in … Read more >>

The usual top quality puzzle from Beelzebub. I didn’t find anything too problematic in there this week, and I think I’ve been able to explain them all. *=anagram, []=dropped, <=reversed. Across 1 DIVEST … Read more >>