Never knowingly undersolved
I usually recommend the Monday Indy to anyone who’s getting into the Dark Arts, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this one. If I hadn’t been blogging this, I might have given up and … Read more >>
The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26305. With the exception of 14D, which escapes me, Brendan has produced here a crossword which fits into the easy Monday slot without controversy, unless BANKSIA at 18D … Read more >>
It feels a bit as if Cyclops was when he compiled this — the divine Mr Farage and his ‘party’ make three appearances. For some reason, probably because my mind has been on … Read more >>
Quite a challenge this week, and browsing the list of answers, it’s not hard to see why. I made good steady progress at first, filling about two thirds of the grid unaided. A … Read more >>
Plenty to wrestle with this week, and whilst I haven’t counted, there seem to be a relatively high number of clues squeezed in. This took me two or three sittings, with 6 down … Read more >>
Nick: A game of two halves this week. The top half of the grid flew in, but then I ground to a halt on the bottom half, taking a few hours to complete it. … Read more >>
Lorraine: Good morning to you all, for the last time. A big thank you to Gaufrid and everyone involved in fifteen squared. A big thank you to all of you who follow the Everyman … Read more >>
I can usually finish a Genius puzzle in about an hour, 90 minutes at the outside, but this one took nearly a whole morning before the grid was filled, and I had to … Read more >>
A bit of a last minute rush with this, and apologies for maybe not doing it justice. I did the parsing below earlier in the week, but am now in the depths of Swaledale in … Read more >>
‘ordeal, horror, torment, torture, trial, calamity, agony, anguish, awful experience’.
That’s how Chambers describes a nightmare. Oh goody…
I made hard work of this one, but it was enjoyable work. Thanks Picaroon.
Phi continues to tease on Fridays Only 25 clues in the puzzle today which is at the low end of numbers of clues in a national daily. Of course, many of … Read more >>
A very entertaining challenge from GOLIATH which required several sittings to fully crack the grid. Frankly, this was a very educational outing where I learnt several new words/phrases (e.g. 16,17ac ; 15d; part of 1d) after having deduced the solution from successfully breaking down the clue. Googling helped with 15d.
Thoroughly enjoyed this !! Thanks Goliath for getting my Friday off to a great start.
The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26303. I found this a bear, with several parsings which I have either misread or are to my mind stretched to breaking point.. I am generally impressed by … Read more >>
This is getting silly. Monk is a mathematician and so is no doubt well aware of the probabilities, but his last four Independent crosswords have all been blogged by me. How likely was that? He’s probably getting rather tired of this, but I’m not, for his crosswords are always good. Tough, though, especially this one, where I had to admit defeat on one clue.
The letters around the outside suggest a Nina of some sort, but I can find nothing except the word ‘orgy’ on the right, which is perhaps a coincidence. But I did find ‘Placebo’ in the second row of unches, then further down ‘Brian Molko’. I imagined that Monk had a friend called Brian Molko who was involved in medical research, but a little Googling quickly revealed my disgraceful ignorance. Evidently they are a group and BM is their lead vocalist and guitarist. No doubt their songs are placed around the answers, but I leave that to you since I can’t find any album names or singles there.
Definitions underlined (except for one of them (5dn, which is fortunately obvious) which I forgot when doing the blog and can’t now recover).