Never knowingly undersolved
It’s always a delight to find Puck’s name on a puzzle and this one certainly lived up to expectations. Some of the wordplay was characteristically tricky and there were several penny-dropping moments, producing … Read more >>
Got through about half of this quickly, then struggled to the end – just wasn’t on the right wavelength for 9ac and 5dn, had never heard of 22,20 and still can’t properly parse … Read more >>
This was a puzzle of two halves for me: at one point I found I’d done all of the left-hand side, with the right side almost completely empty. Fortunately I got there in … Read more >>
A very straightforward puzzle from Philistine, but with some nice touches. Across 1 Attend tailor, me? Unlikely (14) TATTERDEMALION (ATTEND TAILOR ME)* &lit. A tatterdemalion is hardly likely to attend a tailor’s shop. … Read more >>
Just the right level of difficulty for a Quiptic, I thought. Thanks to Pan. Definitions are underlined in the clues. Across 1 Bereaved woman welcoming new opportunity for action (6) WINDOW : WIDOW(bereaved … Read more >>
The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26155.
[Two blogs of Paul puzzles from me in as many days – but the following was actually written first, being last Saturday’s Prize crossword. It has none of the Pauline schoolboy humour that … Read more >>
The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26153. Arachne in fine form, including one clue (18D) that beats me. Across 1. Advancing or retreating, it is in bad odour (8) POSITING An envelope (‘in’) … Read more >>
A fairly typical Paul puzzle, with some of his trademark schoolboy humour and a mixture of quite straightforward charades and double definitions, together with some more complicated and misleading constructions. An enjoyable solve … Read more >>
Lots of fun clues and neat surfaces from Chifonie. Favourites were 10ac, 11ac, 23ac and 18dn. Across 7 Outfitter is more flexible when holding interest (8) SUPPLIER =”Outfitter”. SUPPLER=”more flexible” around I[nterest] 9 … Read more >>
A busy week for Nutmeg, with the Quiptic yesterday and a cryptic today. Some nice sound clueing here; I had a feeling as I was working though the puzzle that there were rather … Read more >>
With the exception of a handful of clues I didn’t enjoy this puzzle, and thought that some of the complex wordplay was out of place in a Quiptic. I hope someone can improve … Read more >>
A new year but Rufus is still going strong, lower than usual count of CD and DD clues I felt. The usual mix of stuff, was thinking there weren’t any anagrams as I went … Read more >>
(Apologies for the late appearance of this post – all my fault.) This was an excellent seasonal puzzle from Crucible, with a nice level of difficulty for a prize puzzle. The special instructions … Read more >>
My apologies. A blog for this puzzle should have appeared yesterday but something seems to have prevented the scheduled blogger from posting. I had initially assumed that the closing date for entries had been extended … Read more >>