Never knowingly undersolved
This was really tough. Merlin has a monthly slot in the Indy. As a solver who tackles the Times Listener Crossword every week, Merlin is familiar to me in that context also as … Read more >>
A nice thematic puzzle about bones…. Across 1 VAC, ATE – A brief holiday is a vac(ation) and Ate was the Greek goddess of blind folly and delusion. 9 OTIS – “Mr Redding” … Read more >>
Solving time : 30 minutes. In many ways a typical Phi puzzle, very fair. The clues that marred this puzzle for me were a couple of cryptic definitions that I didn’t feel worked … Read more >>
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 >>
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 >>
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 >>
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 >>
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 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 >>
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 >>
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 >>
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 >>
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 >>
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 >>
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 >>