Inquisitor

Another new blogger … and a new setter to boot – double whammy? (I’ll be walking in the Pyrenees when this should come out, so no response from me anytime soon.)  The entry … Read more >>

Well, here goes with my first blog. I picked up my Independent with some trepidation but as soon as I turned to The Inquisitor and saw that it was by Phi, I breathed … Read more >>

Solving time: about 90 minutes This puzzle’s thematic material was provided by both extra and missing letters in wordplay, and two grid entries – one unclued, one clued without definition. The letters missing … Read more >>

When I see the word ‘Cinema’ in a crossword title I tend to go Ugh! as I am not film literate. However, as is often the case with barred cryptics, the title turned … Read more >>

Wow! Tremendous stuff from Loda! A puzzle with 20  across and 20 down clues where all the answers were 6 letter words corresponding to the balls in an over, using vowels as scoring … Read more >>

This one was mixed bag for me. I found some of it relatively tough for an Inquisitor. The tough parts were the down clues. With the wordplay providing two extra letters I found … Read more >>

Solving time: maybe 2 hours in several bursts The thematic material in this puzzle was Five words from a quote, plus its author, provided by extra letters in wordplay for all but 7 … Read more >>

One of our four Inquisitor bloggers has just asked to stop. If there are any Inquisitor solvers out there willing to join the blogging team, let me know by sending an email to: … Read more >>

The preamble to this puzzle was fairly complicated and needed reading a two or three times before I got it clear in my mind as there was reference to clued entries, unclued entries, … Read more >>

An Araucaria-style alphabetical jigsaw with a serious twist! No clue numbers, but the normal clues were presented in alphabetical order of their solutions and answers were to be fitted in where they would … Read more >>

Quite an easy puzzle for me though I didn’t fully understand the theme until the very end despite seeing HENRY JAMES on the main diagonal about half way through. Though solving the clues … Read more >>

Solving time: about two hours This was an interesting geographical challenge, with just about the right amount of work for me remaining to be done after the grid was nearly completed from plain … Read more >>

The preamble stated that ‘eight double clues lead to two solutions (two of two words); straddling the two in the order presented is a thematic word.  The thematic words (one of two words) … Read more >>

I’m usually worried when I can do 1 across immediately, but solving the clues here was pretty straightforward though I had a number of question marks about several of the across wordplays and … Read more >>

Despite some initial misgivings this turned out to be a straightforward puzzle from Schadenfreude. Quite a few answers seemed to fit and a couple were too short but their first and last letters … Read more >>