Independent 8,792 by Crosophile

Initially I felt ill-disposed towards this, because of my obsession (some would call it a hang-up) with less than 50% checking, something that appears several times in the grid. But actually this is a perfectly pleasant crossword with some nice clues.

The inadequate (in my opinion) checking is sometimes excusable if there is a Nina and the setter is trying to get normal words into the grid. But in this case the Nina (which for once I’ve seen, although perhaps there is more) is fairly simple: look at the seven-letter words going diagonally from top to left, top to right, etc in the grid. They are all of a kind, and, further, the shape of the words surrounds something that may also be regarded as one of these.

Definitions underlined.

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Cyclops 536

After some confusion between cut-off dates published online and in the print version, the blog is scheduled to appear at midnight on Sunday as usual.

Financial Times 14,807 by CHALMIE

A varied set of clues, leading to an interesting set of words in the solution.  All-in-all a very pleasant puzzle  (and even more interesting than I at first realised, thank you Chalmie).

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TfTT Christmas Turkey

The bloggers and commenters of TfTT have again put together a cryptic puzzle for Christmas. It can be found here if anyone wishes to pit their wits against their counterparts.  

Financial Times 14,799 – Falcon

Monday Prize Crossword/Dec 8 This crossword didn’t give me much trouble. Smooth clueing all the way. Only my LOI (13d)was new to me. A few solutions that may be connected to Christmas but that is … Read more >>