Guardian

Oh dear, it had to happen. Did the crossword, pottered around the house all morning while someone fixed the broken drain that’s been causing a stink in my house, checked the site a … Read more >>

Solving time: 20’ Rather fast for me for a Brendan. Though I didn’t get all the wordplays while solving and had to rely on definitions. There are a couple of themelets here (war … Read more >>

Ah Rufus! You either love him or hate him! I counted 11 cryptic definitions/double meaning type clues in this puzzle. I think one of my fellow bloggers commented a couple of weeks ago … Read more >>

Solving time: 20:15 I was pretty slow to spot the thematic bits, which were many and crucial, so I’m not too disappointed with the time. In fact I’m pleased just to have completed … Read more >>

A pretty straightforward puzzle, with no obscure German towns or archaic words and only one two fairly minor quibbles for me. A couple of the anagrams give themselves away rather too cheaply, but Chifonie makes … Read more >>

I expected a Pasquale puzzle to be straightforward with good cluing, and for the most part it was. However, I had to use TEA to find the final answer, 14ac. Even with maximum … Read more >>

I was at a beer-tasting event last night, so was hoping for an easy puzzle today – no such luck! I groaned when I saw it was Araucaria, but after looking over the … Read more >>

Apologies for the lateness of this entry, but I had technical problems earlier today, and have since had to sit through a mind-numbing Property Strategy meeting for a couple of hours.  The delay … Read more >>

Solving time: 16:49.26 I usually don’t time myself down to the split-second but I have a new desktop timer gadget thingy, with hundredths of a second which will be useful at the next … Read more >>

Solving time: about 14 mins + a bit of guesswork on 1dn, which I got wrong. The three starred clues, of which two were fairly straightforward despite being clued without definition, led to … Read more >>

Not quite sure how to summarise this puzzle. It was fairly easy, even if some of the references and definitions are not immediately obvious, and, for the most part, the clues made sense. … Read more >>

Solving time: 55’ Humbling. Stared at this for 5 minutes before DRESDEN dropped. The football “club” theme came to mind after another 5 minutes of frustration. At first I thought Premier League but … Read more >>

For a while I thought I was going to go sub 5 minutes on this puzzle, but in the end there’s one left that I can’t get. I got the two 15-letter downs … Read more >>

There’s usually (always?)  a theme from Breandan, and a rather clever one in this case. The six-letter downs in top left and bottom right are all three letter words doubled, and the eight-letter pairs … Read more >>