Independent 6366/Virgilius – Revelation
A quick start and middle was followed by a gradual slowdown as I picked my way through the bottom left-hand corner. Enjoyed both the fast part and the slower part though. Still not … Read more >>
Independent 6365 by Hypnos – Gentle start to the week
A pleasing and not too difficult puzzle by Hypnos, one of the occasional setters. Quite a few anagrams among the 22 clues. When I saw the central across clue contained “theme”, I thought the puzzle … Read more >>
Guardian 24,022, Rufus: The Rufus paradox
Doing better than last week – I’ve managed to post in the morning even though the paperboy delivered the Telegraph with ‘Sorry, no Gaurdian’ written on it (no irony intended, I assume). Sorry if … Read more >>
Sloggers and Betters 2
For a second time, some of the contributors to this blog, Times for the Times and RTC3 are meeting in a London pub. The chosen venue is “Shaw’s Booksellers” in St Andrew’s Hill, near Blackfriars, on … Read more >>
Everyman 3153/Mar 4 – harder than usual
This Everyman was harder for me than the run of the mill. Me or the puzzle? Not sure why: no “dictionary words” per se. Only one reference that I needed to look up … Read more >>
Independent 6358/Nimrod
I bow to no-one in my admiration of Nimrod, despite the fact that some his stuff goes completely over my head, but I don’t think this was one of his better efforts. I … Read more >>
Guardian 24,015 (Sat 3rd March)/Araucaria – Land fill
Solving time: 14:48 The preamble to this puzzle read: “Lands here are 4-ed [linked] (as our non-PC forebears would think) by 14 down [‘The missing’].” The grid contains eight countries. At first I … Read more >>
Guardian 24020/Rover — House & Home
Rover, is another Guardian setter who overuses the cryptic definition. Some of the definitions here just weren’t cryptic or were very obvious. When Rover stayed away from this device there were some good … Read more >>
Independent 6363/Phi
A very enjoyable crossword if not very difficult. Mostly charades with partial anagrams and a couple of long anagrams thrown in. Quite a few containers and reversals but that didn’t really strike me … Read more >>
Inquisitor #9 – Search by Loda
Solving time: 3-4 hours An nice example of a fairly standard advanced cryptic puzzle type – “entries mangled according to a theme to be identified”. In this case, there are some thematic entries … Read more >>
Independent on Sunday 890 by Quixote – Record-Breaker
Well, just a personal record. I’ve done the great majority of the Indy cryptics since the paper first appeared in 1986 and this was my fastest solve ever. Last year I broke my … Read more >>
Guardian 24019/Araucaria – no Brer Rabbit?
Solving time approx. 20 minutes. Araucaria again. I got him last week too, on the Wednesday. What have I done to deserve this? Actually most of it wasn’t too bad today, although I … Read more >>
Independent 6362/Nestor – You won’t be 19A-ed
This seemed slightly easier than Nestor’s previous puzzles but no less brilliant. Practically every clue reads perfectly and the construction of the wordplay is absolutely spot-on throughout. There’s a couple that I didn’t … Read more >>
Guardian 24,018, Paul: Came unstuck, mea culpa
Oh dear, it had to happen. Did the crossword, pottered around the house all morning while someone fixed the broken drain that’s been causing a stink in my house, checked the site a … Read more >>
Independent 6361/Dac — Fireworks!
Lots of fire and explosions today. The usual quality from Dac but with one clue leaving me perplexed as to its definition. Across 1 AXING — A+XI+N.G. — team is often XI, as … Read more >>