Never knowingly undersolved
For those that haven’t picked up on it yet, the last puzzle from ‘Everyman’ was a few weeks ago: 3573, which had a ‘farewell’ theme and which Peter O blogged. Allan Scott, having … Read more >>
The usual eclectic mix from Paul.
Enjoyable – and topical? – fare from Morph for this week’s Prize puzzle… At the end of a 9A TUMULT-uous week in British politics, there seemed to be subliminal references all over this. … Read more >>
To paraphrase the Monty Python ‘Australian Wine’ sketch (and I may have done this before, so apologies in advance): ‘…this is not a crossword for solving, this is a crossword for laying down … Read more >>
A delightful pleasant puzzle from a much welcome setter today. Redshank gives us a relatively easy challenge with appropriate sprinkles of innovative cluing and generally clean surfaces. A couple of clues caught my fancy, especially 24ac and 7d. Thanks to Redshank, who rounds off an incredible week for the FT aficionados.
Today saw my monthly Friday encounter with Phi. I found this to be a medium-difficulty Phi puzzle. I made steady progress through it from the start almost to the finish, faltering only in … Read more >>
The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26572.
It’s a real treat for me to get Vlad’s second puzzle to blog. I’ve come to grief several times with his Tyrus puzzles in the Indy – he’s there today – so I … Read more >>
Tyrus has given us a good challenge today with only one entry that I don’t remember coming across before. The one word that was new to me was ALAMEDA at … Read more >>
A curate’s egg. Our enjoyment was spoiled by what we saw as some very contrived answers necessitated by the special feature referred to in the rubric.
Monday Prize Crossword / May 4, 2015
One of Dante’s easier crosswords, I thought. Still not easy to finish it without obstacles. The combi 11ac/9d almost defeated me. Almost!
Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of May 2, 2015 This was another tough one for me but it has a few sparkling clues topped by the brilliant &lit of 18d (LITERATO). Other … Read more >>
Cracking puzzle from Io. There were many of WTF? moments in this puzzle where I had no idea at all about what was going on. Thankfully it (mostly) became clear in the end. Overall this was pretty tough! Thanks Io .
There are still a a couple that I can’t quite get to the bottom of. Any help with the finishing touches appreciated.
Enjoyable but not too tough, with the left hand side going in very quickly. Favourites 3dn and 17dn. Thanks Brummie.
I am usually trying to write a clue in some clue-writing competition or other; and it is nearly always tortuous. In Dac’s case none of his clues are tortuous: they all seem to be perfectly natural, and they always have a simple and strong surface. Why it should be that the words Dac clues are so different from those that I try to clue is beyond me. Actually they’re not: it’s just that he is rather better at it than I am.
Definitions underlined.