Azed

As always, a pleasant wade through a whole lot of words that one has never heard of. If I explained them all this blog would take ages to read and write, so I … Read more >>

This was in the “not too difficult” category of Azed puzzles, at least as far as completing the grid was concerned. As often happens, confirming all the details to complete the blog took … Read more >>

Nick:  Some unusually unusual words this week from Azed, with several I did not know of – however a lot of these are clued rather easily with clear word play. I had to use … Read more >>

With apologies for the delay in posting, and for a couple of answers whose wordplay has eluded me, here is last Sunday’s puzzle. I had forgotten that it was my turn to blog, … Read more >>

This was the final Azed puzzle of 2013 and was a standard plain puzzle comprising elegant cluing for a range of well known and obscure words, all of which can be found in … Read more >>

A Christmas Crossword Celebration Party!  I think this one is a bit harder than the 1913 instance.  Though I have to say that having struggled with Pointer’s Listener, this felt like R&R. Missing … Read more >>

What we get every time with Azed — sound clues and a lot of wading through Chambers. They are always soluble in the end, although 1dn defeats me. I’m sure if this was a competition … Read more >>

As Don Manley pointed out in a comment on Nick’s blog last week, Azed’s sound clueing often means that you can often work out what the answer must be from the wordplay, even … Read more >>

Nick:  Fairly straight forward Azed this week. I found nothing too taxing, although there are some gotcha’s unless the clues are parsed correctly. I also correctly guessed the competition phrase in about 60 … Read more >>

I admit to a slight feeling of trepidation when I opened my Observer last Sunday and noticed that it was a Playfair puzzle, knowing that it was my turn to blog.  It’s almost … Read more >>

Azed, as usual, has given us a master class in precise cluing., where it is always clear when  you have derived the right answer from the wordplay.       There weren’t very … Read more >>

Not sure how hard this actually was since I solved it over several days in between various meetings.   Found TBRB quite useful — understatement of the year. Across 1 GOSS,I,B – a … Read more >>

The usual very pleasant workout from Azed. I always find that I make steady progress and then reach an impasse, when I simply can’t parse one or two of the clues. But they … Read more >>

I found this mostly pretty easy, finishing it (so I thought) without aids in about half an hour, greatly helped by getting the long answers at 1a and 1d early on. Writing up … Read more >>

Nick:  Very tough cluing this week from Azed. 13ac, 31ac, 4dn, 16dn and 27dn caused me a few moments of head scratching trying to parse the clues correctly.   Finally 18ac was a … Read more >>