Guardian 23,932 by Shed
Some nice touches and some tough clues here – 8ac and 18ac took some thought. This Guardian grid pattern’s not the easiest, with no first letters for more than half the words, and eight with … Read more >>
Independent on Sunday 875 by Quixote Tricky in places
Some tricky clues – solving time 22 mins. Hope setters are not paid by clue, just 24 in the puzzle. ACROSS 5 GRIN AND BEAR IT anagram of “Britain – danger” with the … Read more >>
Independent 6273/Mass – Painful for me
Something of a bruising encounter for me and I’m still licking the wounds. I find Mass puzzles very tough – enjoyable, but tough. Matters weren’t helped by getting 19A and 22a wrong and … Read more >>
Guardian 23931/Quantum – easy top half
Solving time – approx 12 mins. I got three of the four perimeter 15-letter entries straight away and had the top half finished in under 3 minutes, then lost a bit of momentum … Read more >>
Coming Soon – Azed
From this weekend, we will be covering the Azed puzzles that appear in the Observer. Reviews will appear each Sunday, which is the day after the official closing date for the prize draw. … Read more >>
Independent 6272/Dac – easy but nice
Independent 6272/Dac – easy but nice Solved in 5:05. Got a reasonable start with 5A and then the easy anag at 5D. Should really have had 1A first time for a sub-5 clocking, … Read more >>
Guardian 23,930 by Chifonie – Uninspiring stuff
Solving time – 10-12 minutes This is my first entry in this blog, and also the first time in a while that I have come across Chifonie. I am not terribly impressed. I … Read more >>
Independent 6271 – Making Sense of Virgilius
Solving Time: 18 minutes After yesterday’s enjoyable Tees puzzle, the momentum of the excellence of the recent Indy puzzles continued with today’s puzzle by Virgilius, although the brilliance of most of the puzzle … Read more >>
Guardian 23929/Paul — 24ac?
Solving time : 20-60 minutes (see below). I spent a lot of time looking at this on the bus but at the end of a 40 minute journey I had just a few … Read more >>
Independent 6270/Tees – The Two Ronnies
Solving time: 7:45 I really liked this puzzle on the theme of 11s (coincidentally the first clue I solved), though I wonder if I have missed some of the thematic references. A very … Read more >>
Guardian 23928/Rufus – good clean fun.
Solving time: 20’ Some clever puns and by no means a surfeit of clichés. Quite enjoyable with satisfying surfaces. Across 5 CORPUS – Body of work and physical body. 9 SINECURE – somewhat … Read more >>
Observer 3137/Everyman – Americanisms…
Done sporadically during a very pleasant afternoon in Geneva mainly drinking wine, eating ice-cream, coffee then dinner. Followed by more drink and cakes. After about 4 glasses of wine, crosswords don’t seem very … Read more >>
Guardian 23,921/Araucaria – tough thematic puzzle
Solving time 24:41 This was a nice example of the kind of challenge that has made Araucaria probably the best-loved cryptic setter we have. The theme turns out to be a subset of … Read more >>
Independent 6263/Nimrod – W O N T O N C U D
I got confused about who was writing what and wrote stuff on both of last Saturday’s puzzles. So this one is a duplicate… another excuse for putting it up is that I referred to links … Read more >>
Independent Saturday Prize Puzzle 6263 by Nimrod
Solving Time: 23 minutes An enjoyable Saturday romp from Nimrod with a topical theme given the recently announced departure of Des from Countdown. If the puzzle had a weakness, it was that Countdown … Read more >>