Never knowingly undersolved
This one took me a little longer than usual though progress was always steady apart from a slight hold-up towards the end in the SE corner (though, from what I am led to … Read more >>
As usual everything (with the possible exception of 25dn) is quite simple but very complicated since the words are so difficult. Hence many of these clues can be explained in one short statement.
Definitions underlined
Jambazi (a.k.a. Tramp) is one of my favourite setters and one I’d like to see more of in both the Indy and the G. He is known for hard puzzles, and if I … Read more >>
I’m fond of these perimeter-quotation puzzles, although they can make things a little tricky if you can’t get a toe-hold in the centre of the puzzle. However, it’s not clear how much if any of the quotation will survive the dramatic cull proposed in the preamble (we are to delete almost three quarters of the grid once it’s been filled in).
I found this quite difficult, and for a while a bit frustrating.
Today we have what on the face of it is a fairly standard puzzle from Phi Well that’s what I thought until I just noticed before starting the blog that … Read more >>
A very enjoyable puzzle from CHALMIE this Friday. There were some devious twists and turns that extended the solving time by atleast 25% for me. A couple of clues also had me googling feverishly for checking the parsing but otherwise relatively unambiguous.
Found this tough but fun, with 1ac, 11ac and 20/27 my favourites. Thanks Qaos.
Rather a difficult Monk today I thought, but as usual very enjoyable. There are one or two loose ends which, thanks to the wisdom of those reading this blog, should be tied up before the end of the day.
And of course there’s the Nina, which I half saw and then forgot, to be reminded by Herb @1, who saw rather more than I did. The bottom row is a clear statement, so I looked at the top and couldn’t understand what was happening. All explained below. Very good. I can’t see why Herb thinks he hasn’t got it, for it clearly refers to the Russian novel.
Definitions underlined.
Ringo has work commitments today so you will have to put up with me instead. I found this to be a steady solve, with no particular hold-ups or parsing problems once I had … Read more >>
I found this very hard, and a bit of a slog – I seemed to be staring at a virtually empty grid for ages. Even getting the long answer at 11,2 didn’t make … Read more >>
I failed to complete this one to my satisfaction as I am not sure of the correct entry for 11ac. Otherwise it was a typical Dante with the usual plethora of cryptic definitions. … Read more >>
Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of January 31, 2015 I found it refreshing and delightful to have the now-rare treat of a Cincinnus puzzle. And as usual it proved to be fairly … Read more >>
Apologies for the delay, forgot it was my turn, so this is a bit rushed, can’t explain one of them either.
Not as hard as some Io puzzles, if you can get started!