Guardian

Typical fair Rufus fare. A couple of nice turns of phrase (e.g. 24D), one Shakespearean reference that had me checking Hamlet (22D) and a wordplay whose decoding had me going for a bit … Read more >>

Seems like the theme might have been words starting with C given the high proportion (CHERISHED, CARPETBAGGERS, CROWN, CHILE PINE, CHESS, CHRISTABEL, CONFIDENT). Quite an accessible puzzle with generally sensible surfaces (except for … Read more >>

A nice thematic puzzle about bones…. Across 1 VAC, ATE – A brief holiday is a vac(ation) and Ate was the Greek goddess of blind folly and delusion. 9 OTIS – “Mr Redding” … Read more >>

Some nice touches and some tough clues here – 8ac and 18ac took some thought. This Guardian grid pattern’s not the easiest, with no first letters for more than half the words, and eight with … Read more >>

Solving time – approx 12 mins. I got three of the four perimeter 15-letter entries straight away and had the top half finished in under 3 minutes, then lost a bit of momentum … Read more >>

Solving time – 10-12 minutes  This is my first entry in this blog, and also the first time in a while that I have come across Chifonie.  I am not terribly impressed.  I … Read more >>

Solving time : 20-60 minutes (see below). I spent a lot of time looking at this on the bus but at the end of a 40 minute journey I had just a few … Read more >>

Solving time: 20’ Some clever puns and by no means a surfeit of clichés. Quite enjoyable with satisfying surfaces. Across 5 CORPUS – Body of work and physical body. 9 SINECURE – somewhat … Read more >>

Solving time 24:41 This was a nice example of the kind of challenge that has made Araucaria probably the best-loved cryptic setter we have. The theme turns out to be a subset of … Read more >>

 Pretty straightforward, took four to five tube stops (10-12 mins). ACROSS  9  ABODE. AB + ode – has anyone had to use the abbreviation for Able Seaman outside crossword-land? Sailor can also give ‘tar’ … Read more >>

Solving time – 11:17 Would have been about three minutes quicker but I got stuck on 1ac(!) and 2dn – from the checking letters I saw SANG FROID, which I knew didn’t make … Read more >>

Solving time: Bits and pieces in about 1h For the first time in my (limited) Araucarian experience, nary a cross-referenced clue. Not much need for a dictionary either: though 14D, while making some … Read more >>

Solving time : about 20 minutes. I noticed before writing this that Virgilius appears in the Independent today and that there is, as usual, a theme. Well, this puzzle from Virgilius’s alter ego … Read more >>

Solving time: 16’ Mixture of clichéd crossword idioms and some clever wordplay. As usual, not a shaky surface in sight. Apologies for not posting this yesterday – there’s a complicated story involving Geneva, … Read more >>

Solving time: probably 35’ total with lots of interruptions Everyman grew up in the post-war Observer as Ximenes’s relatively easy puzzle. His guidelines (as I just learned in his “Art of the Crossword”) … Read more >>