Azed

I solved this early in the week… but forgot to write up my notes until early this morning.  So I’m regressing to the mean: after a reasonably long spell of decoding all of … Read more >>

Again a lovely sound crossword from Azed. I won’t waste time by copying out Chambers but as usual will confine myself to trying to explain how the clues work, something that wasn’t always … Read more >>

The first thing that struck me about this puzzle was the unusually open grid, with wide open unbarred spaces, especially in the NE and SW corners. The two 13-letter across answers have only … Read more >>

Nick:  A fairly difficult Azed this week being a Letters Latent puzzle. He does give a way in though with the comment in the preamble about anagrams (for those that are new to … Read more >>

A reasonably straightforward Azed this week, with no particular problems (except one!) and a very friendly grid (only 2 unches in an 11 letter word).  The problem is 10 across, which refers to … Read more >>

This was a standard Azed competition puzzle in that all the clues were normal, except for the one entry that has to be clued by competitiors withm their submissions.       I … Read more >>

Might be wrong about this but seems like Azed has eschewed Scots terms for the duration.  Of this puzzle at least.  In favour of Latin and Greek. Across 1 BI(O)AS,SAY 7 AM(B)O – … Read more >>

As always with Azed, thoroughly sound clues and much wading through Chambers in a chase for words that one has never heard, frequently finding variant spellings and having to wade further still. As … Read more >>

A puzzle in the middle of the Azed scale of difficulty, with no particularly involved clue construction, but a few rather obscure references needing lookups in Chambers and elsewhere. As always, quality clueing … Read more >>

Nick:  For a special, I found this rather easy, so 6/10 for me, but 9/10 for the cleverness. Incidently, this blog took me longer to do than the puzzle 😀 First, the preamble, so … Read more >>

Another straightforward puzzle from Azed, with the usual quota of obscure and historic words, necessitating many checks in Chambers.  I haven’t attempted to explain the meanings of the answers, just tried to show … Read more >>

This seemed to be a standard Azed puzzle with excellent clues and the usual mix of everyday and obscure vocabulary in the grid.       There was a good mix of clue … Read more >>

Not so dreadful though dreadfully showed up at least twice as an anagrind.   In fact, rather a gentle Azed that, other than all the French and Scots and Spenserisms, is a good … Read more >>

As usual an efficient production from Azed. I don’t seem to have said much about a succession of clues where the words in both the clue and the answer are not, to say the least, everyday, … Read more >>

I was wondering whether there might be some kind of special for this, as the first round(ish) number since 2000 and happening to coincide with a competition week, but it turned out to … Read more >>