So playfair puzzles aren’t my favourite cup of tea. Fortunately, my colleague Frank Yellin doesn’t mind them and has a bunch of python code to prove it (we are both Jewish so had plenty of time on our hands this week). So he helped me no end figuring out the actual magic square — which this time had no Q rather than the more usual I/J merging (to produce 25 letters of the alphabet in a 5×5 grid).
Observer
Everyman 3663
If I may do a bit of bah, humbug, I thought this was a bit one-dimensional, with the same devices being used lots of times. But if you like multi-part clues, then this … Read more >>
Everyman 3,662
The scheduled blogger has been having Internet access problems but he hoped to have been able to publish a post earlier today. It is now early evening and his blog has still not … Read more >>
AZED 2,323
It gets worse. It’s very likely no fault of Azed’s, more The Observer being incompetent, but there are lots of mistakes here. There is a general cock-up (which is of no real concern to the solver) which is a repeat in reverse of last week: last week they printed the ‘three prizes’ version of the preamble and said nothing about any asterisked clue or where to send it; this week they printed what they should have printed last week when it isn’t a competition clue-setting week.
But more serious is the large number of little mistakes, so many that in some places one can’t be quite sure what is going on. 26ac is given as 24ac. Is 32ac of five letters or six? 18dn doesn’t have the number 18 in the right place in the grid (it is, meaninglessly, in the square above where it should be). 28dn seems to be of five letters although it is given as (4). There should be a line between the D of PARDAL and the N of AVANTI.
I downloaded the crossword from the website on Sunday morning and one would have hoped that by now things would have been corrected. I looked again just now (late on Sunday) but nothing has been done. I didn’t see the paper copy and wonder if that one contained the same mistakes. My bet is that it does and I base this on the obvious disdain of the staff at The Observer for a crossword that continues a tradition of many years. Time they started to treat its crossword with a bit of respect.
Still, I got there, more or less, and it was the usual enjoyable experience. Is it me or are the words becoming more and more obscure? At least the clues are structurally pretty straightforward.
Azed 2322
As is quite common, there are a couple of minor typos in the clues. More seriously, that fact that this is a competition puzzle was not mentioned (at least initially) on the website, … Read more >>
Everyman 3,661
The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/everyman/3661.
Everyman 3,660
The hardest thing when blogging an Everyman is finding something to say in the preamble. There is seldom anything to quibble about in the clues and errors are even rarer. Today is no … Read more >>
AZED 2,321
Another enjoyable and educational tour of the forgotten corners of the English language with Azed as the guide.
AZED 2,320
A plain 12 x 12 grid, this week, with some very generous checking.
Everyman 3659
A tricky little number this morning, I thought. What did you make of it? Abbreviations cd cryptic definition dd double definition (xxxx)* anagram anagrind = anagram indicator [x] … Read more >>
Everyman 3,658
As per usual a classy smooth Everyman
Azed 2319
A standard plain puzzle from Azed today. I made steady progress through this one with the usual help from Chambers dictionary. As usual I learnt an obscure meaning of an … Read more >>
AZED 2,318 – transgender
A fun but hard variant of the typical Azed — we ended up solving as a team (thanks Jutta, Martin, Frank!) — given the title, at first thought that likely theme is Armistice Day (Nov 11) or Guy Fawkes day (Nov 5) — turned out to be the latter — “remember, remember, the fifth of November” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes_Night. To be clear, the theme was basically replace male names in answers with female names (“penny for the guy”) as exemplified by 1A.
Everyman 3,657
The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/everyman/3657.
Everyman 3,656
The usual smooth offering from Everyman today which results in my having little to say. No cryptic definitions, which will no doubt please some people, and only a couple of double definitions, so … Read more >>