Guardian Genius

Wow – thank goodness we get a month to do these – I take my hat off to those mentioned in the Grauniad’s dispatches with entries submitted in the early hours of the … Read more >>

This is my six-monthly venture into the world of Genius blogging.  Seeing Enigmatist’s name as the setter made me think that this puzzle would be a mite challenging.  So it proved to be. … Read more >>

As the instructions say: “All clues are normal [phew!]. Half of the 28 solutions must be turned round and entered in the grid backwards.” This meant filling in answers in pencil until their … Read more >>

Unlike most recent puzzles in this series, there were no special instructions.  It was just a tough cryptic (and here’s a link to the pdf of the puzzle), but made more difficult by … Read more >>

 I shall be blogging this puzzle once the deadline for submissions has passed.  Solvers who are struggling with it may care to note the slight amendment to the enumeration of certain of  the … Read more >>

So, six clues have the correct wordplay for the grid entry but the definition is that of a word or phrase formed by combining the grid entry with one of the unclued entries. … Read more >>

As is typical of Puck’s puzzles, this challenging Genius has lots of satisfying and intricate wordplay. The across clues are all of the DLM (Definition and Letter Mixture) type, which neither of us … Read more >>

I have been unable to contact the scheduled blogger to find out why a blog for this puzzle hasn’t been posted so here is an analysis of the clues (I can’t remember the … Read more >>

The Genius puzzle could be described as one of the blocked crossword world’s entry into the more challenging type of crossword arena championed by the likes of The Inquisitor, Enigmatic Variations and The … Read more >>

I made rather heavy weather of this one, needing several sessions over the month to finish it. Even with some lucky guessing it took me a while to get the full “ennobling instruction” … Read more >>

Lavatch  is a setter whose puzzles (in this series anyway) always seem to involve having to change the word before entry in the grid.  This time the down clues all included a name … Read more >>

The preamble told us that “Each solution contains a two-letter symbol for a chemical element, which needs to be transmuted into another before it is entered in the grid. Each transmutation changes both … Read more >>

This was a fun Genius puzzle, we thought, and quite doable once you untangled the rubric. There were plenty of smiles for me, particularly in how the missing letters changed the meaning of … Read more >>

Had I known that I was going to end up covering this puzzle I would have written the blog immediately after solving it. As it is, a month has gone by and my … Read more >>

Enigmatist is one of the most prolific crossword setters and has a knack of introducing new ideas and twists into his puzzles.  I think this was probably one of the more offbeat of … Read more >>