Never knowingly undersolved
Apologies for the slightly tardy posting. I started this early this morning but was interrupted. I seemed to sail through the puzzle without any particular difficulty. No less enjoyable for that, and a … Read more >>
Seemed to be the easiest Everyman I’ve done for a while but took a while to be convinced by one piece of parsing. Thanks Everyman. Across 1 Is numb, I suspect, in exploration vessel (7) … Read more >>
I seemed to finish this one a little more quickly than usual, perhaps because 1ac and 1dn were my first entries, and then spent more time than is the norm justifying/verifying some of … Read more >>
Azed has given us another masterclass in precise clueing Solving an Azed crossword is always a good source of general knowledge, although whether I will use much of it outside … Read more >>
I’ve very little experience with Hob’s puzzles, and may not ever have blogged one, though I can’t swear it. So this should be interesting. In the event I enjoyed the puzzle, and got … Read more >>
Good fun yet again from Paul.
Oxymoron gives some hints about the possible construction of the puzzle here, by calling it REDUCTIONS, and telling us in the preamble of “a shortage of space” and “clashes”, and warning us that the number of cells given in grid entries may not be the number of letters in answers to clues.
All well and good. That still leaves a lot of questions.
For some reason I found this a bit of a slog while I was solving it, but looking back I see that there’s a nice variety of clues and lots to admire. There … Read more >>
A very special thank you to Phi for this puzzle! We have been blogging now for almost 2 years and this is our 178th post. It will however be one that we will never forget. … Read more >>
Magwitch, this Friday at long last ! She brings this work week to a close with a gentle and relatively straightforward challenge, which in keeping with her inimitable style, has several smooth and clean surfaces with a whiff of inventive constructions.
What you always get with Nimrod, although I must admit that I tend not to do his crosswords nowadays since they are so difficult and I also usually end up being a bit irritated by something, but this time I had to see it through: quite extraordinarily difficult, for some reason, but some imaginative and brilliant clues.
This puzzle had a rather strange grid, which suggests that it was like this for a reason, but that reason is beyond me. Perhaps it was just because Nimrod didn’t want to go down the evil path of having less than 50% checking.
Definitions underlined.
No complaints, but not much to shout about, either: a bit of a ho-hum solve for me, all in all, redeemed in part by fuss-free clueing and some nice surfaces.
(Please click here for this same blog but with a picture quiz added. Please do NOT post hereinbelow any comment relating to the picture quiz. Thank you.) About midway in difficulty level for a … Read more >>
(Please post comments on ONLY the picture quiz hereinbelow. To post comments on the crossword puzzle, please click here.) About midway in difficulty level for a Paul puzzle, I thought. Thanks to Paul. Definitions … Read more >>
Monday Prize Crossword/Jan 5 Excellent crossword from Falcon that I found a bit more challenging than his average output (including the Observer’s Everyman). Definitions are underlined wherever possible and/or appropriate. Across 1 STAND … Read more >>