Never knowingly undersolved
A quick glance at the clues for this puzzle showed that the solution to 8 Across was going to be important as five other clues made reference to it. In fact, the five … Read more >>
A themed puzzle from Araucaria this week. The themed answers are all obvious once the theme is spotted, but some of the other clues are not nearly so easy. The theme is a celebration of … Read more >>
Several of the classic components of an EV on display here – extra letters/words in clues building a thematic sentence (minus one key word), some entries (approximately half) reversed in the grid, and … Read more >>
Great stuff as ever from Phi. Solid clueing with elegant surfaces and some lovely anagrams. My only doubt was the adjectival use of the answer at 23A, which doesn’t appear in Chambers (but … Read more >>
A straightforward solve with some fine clues, my favourites being 26A and 5D. I’m not sure of 28A – there is either an error with my answer or with the clue. Across 1 … Read more >>
A momentous and (mostly) excellent week ends with this enjoyable and reasonably straightforward puzzle from Orlando. It’s all of a pretty high standard, so I won’t pick out any particular clues, though I … Read more >>
Not a surprising choice of setter following yesterday’s rather special crossword – this puzzle looked a little daunting at first but wasn’t too tricky once the grid began to fill. Slightly unsure on … Read more >>
A perfectly respectable crossword, with several particularly fine clues. Just a pity for Styx that that it’s hard to escape the inevitable sense of “After the Lord Mayor’s show..” still lingering from yesterday’s … Read more >>
After what seems to have been a succession of highly complicated and clever crosswords recently, it’s quite nice to get back to something vanilla. But what vanilla. The very best you can get. … Read more >>
Prize puzzle from the FT of Monday 7 February Another Monday, another Dante. As usual, there are some clever cd’s (4 down, 8 down stand out for me) and dd’s (I particularly liked … Read more >>
Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of February 5 Here’s another good puzzle from Cincinnus. My favourite clues are 9A (TITLE), 12A (WHOA), 20A (NICK) and 7D (BEECH). Three answers were terms I … Read more >>
I have uploaded lots of photos of the wonderful party given by the Guardian on the eve of Araucaria’s birthday. It was an honour and a delight to be there. Araucaria party
An amazingly good crossword, and a fitting tribute to the birthday boy. Here at home the kids are off school today for half term break and my wife is away for the week, so it … Read more >>
I’ll leave no spoilers in this paragraph since it appears on the front page and this is a really special puzzle… This puzzle is a wonderful tribute to Araucaria, whose 90th birthday it … Read more >>
There must be some special occasion today for Dac to be ousted from his regular Wednesday slot. There is! Today is the 90th birthday of The Reverend John Galbraith Graham MBE aka Araucaria … Read more >>