Archive

A slightly strange one for me, racing through all but a handful unhindered and thus unaided, struggling on a few more, and finally finding myself absolutely stumped at 21dn, for which I’ve reproduced … Read more >>

A mixed week for me. I proudly managed all but a handful quite quickly without opening a dictionary, stumbled on a couple more, then failed on 4dn having inexplicably written in HORNPIPE at … Read more >>

A good week, I think. This took me several sessions, but I was determined not to cheat. Everything was ultimately solvable, though 1ac was unfamiliar enough to require some undirected Chambers-browsing on my … Read more >>

One of my fastest Beelzebub solves of recent times, as witnessed by me blogging this on the Sunday, for once. There is just one – at 29ac – for which I can find … Read more >>

A very tough week for me, not helped by not being able to locate an unusually high number of the answers in Chambers, rather than just the names and places. *=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, … Read more >>

I’m not sure if this was hard or easy – I made heavy weather of it at first, managing only a few answers in a first session, then raced through the rest on … Read more >>

A solve of two halves for me – all but 25ac and a handful in the SE corner went in very quickly, while the rest took two or three more sessions, a bit … Read more >>

I think this is me all up-to-date with Beelzebub now, as the closing date for this one was put back to the 29th, no doubt for seasonal reasons. No obvious Christmas themes in … Read more >>

This one was tackled the East Coast Mainline, so with no access to aids. Sitting down to blog, I see that while I didn’t quite finish the puzzle, I did put in a … Read more >>

This was easily the toughest Beelzebub I can remember having come across. A first, unaided session yielded only three or four answers. Reinforcements were called in, and the remainder of the puzzle took … Read more >>

A quickish blog, as various factors have led to my falling a little way behind with solving Beelzebub. I’ll use this week to play catchup and then hopefully normal service can be resumed. … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition. Across 1 JOSEPH – EP in JOSH. 8 CALTHA – CA + ((T + H) in LA). 9 EXCORIATIONS – (X in ECO) + RIA … Read more >>

A perhaps over-ambitious attempt on my part, to finish this without any kind of research materials. I filled the grid in reasonable time, but it seems I invented a couple of words in … Read more >>

Now here's a turn up for the books: a Beelzebub that I couldn't actually finish. The Chambers search suggests that the only possible entry for 11dn is BANANALAND, leaving 32ac as RD?EES, which … Read more >>

I was rather proud of how well I did here, managing all answers but one before even opening the dictionary. I won't tell which one defeated me as it's one of the easier … Read more >>