Never knowingly undersolved
Not as hard as some Friday puzzles, but containing one or two relatively obscure words and sub-words with a capacity to frustrate. Took me about 20 minutes over a leisurely breakfast. A lot of clues … Read more >>
I thought this was going to be reasonably straightforward until I hit stormy weather in the SW corner (points covered in notes below). Solving time 34 mins (slower than usual for me for Quixote) … Read more >>
Another one of “those” grids from Nimrod, with only 9 (count ’em) across clues and 5 of those have 15 letters. It’s been said before, here and elsewhere, that the problem with this … Read more >>
This is a sample review to show what you can expect in the New Year, when we hope to cover this puzzle every week. Jude is Mike Laws, editor of this puzzle. On … Read more >>
Solving time approx 20 mins. I seem to remember the last Taupi was seriously tricky, but this one was OK. A lot of very clever and succinct clues that required a bit of … Read more >>
Solving time: 11:36. Monk is one of my favourite Indie setters and today was another gem with clues as inventive and accurate as ever. Some difficult words – five I didn’t know (12, … Read more >>
More quality cluemanship from Dac. Across 6 hidden in “riCE REAlly”. 10 O,I,GIRL< 11 YO,SEMITE – I guess this is a reference to George Bush’s infamous “Yo Blair!” comment. 12 (EACH HIPS)* 13 … Read more >>
Solving time – 10 minutes – would have been under 5 if I’d realised what what was going on in the middle “column” of the grid. I started well with this one – … Read more >>
From the New Year we will start to cover the advanced cryptic puzzles that appear on a Saturday in the Independent Weekend Magazine. These puzzles are edited by Mike Laws and are generally … Read more >>
Another amazing tour de force by Virgilius, whose weekly Indy puzzles usually have a theme. This time (1) all the sixteen perimeter cells contain the letter F (2) there are seven rows and seven … Read more >>
I thought that this puzzle was quite tough for a Tuesday morning, or maybe my brain is starting to wind down for the festive season. As usual. Paul demonstrated some clever wordplay, but … Read more >>
Virtually every clue is holiday related (xmas, parties, trees, pantos, carols…). I probably missed an allusion or two being of the other faith. I think this is the first of the Xmas-related themes … Read more >>
I really enjoyed this. Quite tricky in parts, with some subtle and genuinely inventive wordplay. I got one wrong (18D), confirmed one on the Interweb and filled in a couple without fully understanding … Read more >>
I did most of this on the tube, without Chambers, which is an interesting exercise – you have to make quite a few educated guesses and then corroborate them via the dictionary later … Read more >>
One of these days I’m going to miss a theme in an Everyman. I’ve stared at this one but no joy. Though I always enjoy solving Everyman – which typically takes about 1/2h … Read more >>