Observer

Azed No. 2,703 ‘Jigsaw’ – Competition Puzzle

by

How complicated this all is. It took me ages. I drew the grid on a piece of squared paper and armed myself with a pencil, not the usual pen, then started by solving as many of the clues as possible. Since I got two of the ten-letter answers I took a punt and pencilled them in at right angles to each other — there was a letter that fit both words where they crossed. Then I tentatively added the answers that I had and went on until things went wrong. For the second time I was lucky and the only wrong positioning quickly led to a dead end, and I could retrace my steps. I went on and on and to my surprise it all worked out OK, although I was very fortunate: similar such things have in the past led me to start all over again.

Definitions in crimson, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.

Read more >>

Azed 2701

by

A plain Azed for us to enjoy today.  Possibly there will be something different this Easter weekend.       The thing that struck me most about this puzzle was the quality of … Read more >>

Azed 2698

by

Slightly harder than some recent Plains, I thought, but not too many problems. Thanks to Azed.   Across 1 UMBRELLA‑STAND Bit of hall furniture? Broken tumblers land around one (13, 2 words)A in … Read more >>

Everyman 4,037/3 March

by

Another sound and pleasing puzzle from Everyman this morning. Clearly clued and with all the usual trademarks. Abbreviations cd cryptic definition dd double definition cad clue as definition (xxxx)* anagram anagrind = anagram … Read more >>

Azed No. 2,697 – Plain

by

A pleasant and not too difficult crossword from Azed. I got into a bit of a mess with the software that produces the blog (which was thrown by the strange enumeration at 1ac), but with some help from the writer of the software and a little fiddling I think it’s now in an acceptable form. Some of the anagram indicators are a bit extreme, but Azed basically allows anything where there is a little bit of jiggling.

Definitions in crimson, underlined; anagram indicators in italics; anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*.

Read more >>

Everyman 4,036

by

When I’m not blogging I sometimes miss The Everyman, but when I did it a week or two ago it seemed to be becoming easier, and I wondered if Alan Connor was deliberately making it so in response to the several remarks that this was no longer an entry-level crossword. However, this one has shown that this is not apparently the case, because I thought this was very tricky and I’m still not sure of the parsing of one or two of the clues. I couldn’t find the usual rhyming pair or much of that type; two answers ended with the same three letters although they didn’t rhyme, and I’ve highlighted them in a rather doubtful grey, not the usual flamboyant colours which announce a discovery.

Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (Hidden, anagrams, homophones, insertion, reversal, etc.) in italics. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*. Link-words in green.

Read more >>