Never knowingly undersolved
Two unknown words and one unknown spelling made this a tougher challenge for your faithful correspondents. One clue we haven’t successfully parsed. ACROSS 4. POUND triple definition. 6. HE I NOUS 8. CONNIVER … Read more >>
A paddle in the shallow-end today, with the waters only getting above knee-depth with the slightly obscure – but readily deducible – answer at 17D. Puns and cryptic standalones seem to feature more … Read more >>
Quite a tough one from Paul, with some characteristic humour. I don’t fully understand 1 across, and I have some niggles about a couple of other clues. Across … Read more >>
Monday Prize Crossword on 15 February 2010 I solved this puzzle while ushering in the Year of the Tiger and hope that the year ahead will be as smooth as the puzzle; nothing … Read more >>
Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of February 13 Yet another excellent puzzle from Cincinnus. My favourite clues in this one are 19A, 28A and 2D. Across 9. BON VOYAGE – anagram of … Read more >>
A pleasant, gentle stroll today with nothing too 13ing, but I think there is an error in one of the clues (20dn) unless my parsing is incorrect. It became clear quite quickly that … Read more >>
Maybe it’s the time of night, but I found this quite a slow solve for a Quantum and got held up in a few places despite the long clues falling early. A few … Read more >>
Typically mellifluous surfaces. I found one or two of the clues unusually hard for Dac. Across 1 I would never have got this, because I never knew that a bertha was a woman’s … Read more >>
A good offering from one of the less frequent FT setters. Apologies for the late posting; I had solved this last night but didn’t have a chance to fill in the explanations until … Read more >>
You could not ask for much more from a puzzle than is in this one. I found it quite difficult, solving time, 48 mins. 7/1 is POETS’ CORNER and the name of several … Read more >>
A mixed bag from Gordius. Some excellent clues, somewhat spoiled by a couple of mediocre ones. ACROSS 1 SEPTIC TANKS Ins of TANK (reservoir) in *(cesspit) Nice surface 9 NOISOME Ins of OM … Read more >>
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism There was an Irish provinces theme to this and, although I can see three of the four Irish provinces, I haven’t noticed the fourth … Read more >>
A fun puzzle from Rufus – I had a bit of trouble with the bottom-left corner (21a and 24a) but otherwise this was pretty easy and satisfying to solve. Across 1. ORCHESTRA OR … Read more >>
I thought it would be interesting put together some statistics about how many puzzles there were from each Guardian setter in 2009, and how many comments the blogs have attracted on this site. … Read more >>
Nick: I am trying a new format here, with the full clue next to the clue number and the solution with word play/comments underneath. Often when reading other blogs on this site, I … Read more >>