A debut Genius from Odo…whose real identity was revealed to me at the York get-together…
Guardian Genius
Guardian Genius 267 / Soup
Soup is a regular Genius setter. He sets interesting and challenging puzzles with clever twists. Let’s see what he gives us this month.
Guardian Genius 266 – Claw
The special instructions are slightly mysterious, though with enough information to get us started:
Guardian Genius 265 by KGB
An unusual device characterised this particular puzzle (and made blogging it particularly challenging).
Genius no 264 by Pangakupu
June’s Genius is set by Pangakupu.
The preamble says:
Six answers are modified, with one part of each replaced by itself. Their clues are presented in ascending order so that none is entered in the numbered space indicated. Wordplay in each remaining clue gives an extra letter; these spell out the nature of the replacement. Lengths in brackets indicate the number of spaces to be filled at that number; hyphenation and indications such as ‘7 words’ are omitted.
Guardian Genius 263
This crossword can be found at https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2025/04/24/Genius_crossword_No_263.pdf
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Guardian Genius 262 by Enigmatist
Just like London buses…you wait ages (since 2018!) for an Enigmatist to blog, and then three come along in a row – two recent Grauniad Saturday Prize puzzles, and now Genius 262…
Important maintenance notice
Important maintenance notice
New security measure
IMPORTANT (updated) I’ve now changed the security level from “critical” to “high”. Thanks all for your indulgence. Many of you will have experienced slow response times and/or error messages on Monday. This morning, … Read more >>
Guardian Genius 260 – Karla
“Each across clue contains a word that must be removed before solving. The first and last letters from these words, in clue order, explain changes required, to varying degrees of effect, in all … Read more >>
Genius No 259 by Picaroon
A reasonably straightforward Genius this month.
Genius 258 set by Kite
Kite sets the last Genius challenge of 2024.
The preamble says:
Related features are omitted from wordplay in half the clues. Wordplay in other clues indicates an extra letter in each. The additional letters can be arranged to identify the related features.
The Guardian year in crosswords 2024
Posted on behalf of Mitz
Guardian Genius 257 set by Twin
I believe this is the first Genius to be set by Twin. Indeed, it may be his/her first Guardian puzzle. But I’m informed by the excellent Crossword Forum that Twin won the Ascot Gold Cup in 2020 and 2022 for Listener puzzles (voted so by correct solvers) and has set crosswords as Prime for the Telegraph Toughie and as Agenor in the TLS. And the day after I compose this post, November 7th, Twin sets the Independent Cryptic.