Observer

Azed 2555

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I usually manage to solve plain Azeds in a single sitting, but with this one I ground to a halt after getting about ten answers in, so I had a break, and when … Read more >>

Everyman 3,894/30 May

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I found this clunky in many places, but at the risk of repeating myself, I’m only the blogger. Abbreviations cd cryptic definition dd double definition cad clue as definition (xxxx)* anagram anagrind = … Read more >>

Everyman 3,893

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I looked at the blog of the previous Everyman and someone was saying what fun this was. Whether it was great fun I’m not sure, partly because I found it very hard, with two problems caused by my entering the wrong letters and trying to think of a cocktail whose first word was D_S, and later failing utterly on 13 down and being totally unable to make head or tail of it until I realised that the sausage was a chorizo not a choriza. There are some quite nice clues here, but the old days of a simple but sound crossword that was a gateway for beginners seem to be in the past. I wonder if we will ever return to them.

And I also looked at the blog of the one before that, which was criticised by several people. Two regular setters from several other papers dropped in to the comments and one of them said ‘Sorry to have to say, but this really is just bottom-of-the-heap Guardian stuff, and a far cry from the craftsmanship we once knew.’ I don’t think this one was so dreadful — there are probably a few setters of The Everyman — but the elegant surfaces and penny-drop moments that one gets from various other crosswords were still largely absent.

Definitions in crimson. Indicators (hidden, anagram, reversal etc) in italics. Anagrams are indicated (like this)*, or possibly *(like this), depending on whether the indicator comes before or after the letters to be jumbled.

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Azed 2552

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Azed gives us a plain puzzle this week with an introductory note that Chambers does not give explicitly the adjectival form at 30 across.       This puzzle raises a question that … Read more >>

Everyman 3,890/2 May

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Having dropped into Sil’s blog a few weeks ago to say I agreed with him about Everyman becoming more consistent as a setter of our Sunday puzzle, I found myself getting slightly grumpy … Read more >>

Everyman 3,889

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Only one or two rough edges this week. The Everyman crossword is getting better and is moving towards becoming what it says on the packet, a good sound entry-level crossword like the old Everyman.  Are the rhyming clues 8dn and 13dn? Or 12ac and 16ac?

Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (anagram, hidden, reversal, etc) in italics. Letters omitted are [like this].

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Azed 2549

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I found this not too hard, though somewhat less easy to decode in detail, not helped by an initial wrong guess at 32a. I believe there’s a small slip in 20a, but otherwise … Read more >>