Azed

Quite a pedestrian Azed this week, I thought. Definitely one for those with TEA (or a similar anagram buster) to hand — some obvious anagrams for obscure words, which could be hard work … Read more >>

A pretty straightforward Azed — a few obscure words, but with plenty of checked letters to help, and mostly uncomplicated wordplay (though I did not fully persevere with 20a). There was a slip-up … Read more >>

Solving time 27 mins without books, then about 20 mins with Chambers to clear up the resulting mess. Doing Azed without books is an interesting challenge but sometimes you invent a word that … Read more >>

Solving Time: 55 minutes (with assistance on two clues from the wonderful Eric) Whether it’s because I am off solving barred puzzles at the moment, I can’t say, but this certainly took me a … Read more >>

Solving time: about 2 hours – with one answer wrong, it turns out I forgot I was down to blog this, so solved it today. I can’t remember whether we’ve had a 13×11 … Read more >>

An enjoyable crossword romp taking in a nice mix of the obscure, the ordinary and the Latin. There are a couple of answers I’m not certain about and one clue, 35, that seems … Read more >>

I made quite good progress at first: after about an hour I had the entire puzzle solved… except for 4 or 5 clues in the NE quadrant. The root of all evil was … Read more >>

My broadband connection was down all weekend, hence the lateness of this report. I managed to do most of this without the dictionary, although I cracked near the end and had to look … Read more >>

Solved in three sittings totalling over 75 minutes.  Quite a  tough puzzle by Azed’s standards with a grid that didn’t offer a great deal of help from one section to another.  I solved the … Read more >>

Solving time: not recorded, but I did finish this without looking anything up. 8/11 were the last two to go in. A couple of quibbles at 12 and 35, and some of the … Read more >>

I have mixed feelings about Spoonerisms puzzles — they can be fun, but they can also score pretty highly on the cringe-inducing scale. They can also depend on one’s accent (see 27d, which … Read more >>

I don’t know my solving time so I’ll break with the tradition of the last few blogs. I often solve puzzles piecemeal, here and there, and interspersed with bits of Listener solving, daily … Read more >>

Solving time 47:10, with one clue left (which I eventually got while writing this blog entry). This one was split roughly half and half between entries using familiar vocabulary and those that had … Read more >>

Solving Time: around 75 minutes. A tough challenge from Azed this week with some straight-forward stuff, but one or two really tricky clues that took me a while to work out.  Music:  Maria Callas giving her … Read more >>

In theory I should delay this another hour but I’m sure anyone intending to write a clue to HUMONGOUS will have done so by now. Solving time: 22:20 – no books – and … Read more >>