Fifteensquared – Page 327 – Never knowingly undersolved

The Ace of Hearts makes his (almost) annual appearance. Preamble: From the answer to each clue a letter must be deleted wherever it appears before entry into the grid; Definitions refer to … Read more >>

Guardian 28,771 / Picaroon

May 31, 2022 at 9:30 am by Eileen

It’s always a treat to land a Picaroon puzzle to blog but this one was extra special for me, with its evocations of favourite poems, plays and places. I can’t list all my … Read more >>

Financial Times 17108 Mudd

May 31, 2022 at 9:14 am by scchua

Thank you to Mudd. Definitions are underlined in the clues. Across 1. Retiring nurses fighting authority, provider of shoddy work (6) COWBOY : COY(retiring/shy or pretending to be shy) containing(nurses) WBO(abbrev. for the … Read more >>

Independent 11,117 by Vernon

May 31, 2022 at 8:20 am by Bertandjoyce

This is Vernon’s second Indy puzzle.

Azed 2606

May 31, 2022 at 7:53 amMay 31, 2022 at 12:01 am by duncanshiell

This weeks puzzle from Azed is a plain puzzle. Of course, a plain Azed puzzle involves more unusual words as entries and parts of the wordplay, than you find in national daily crosswords. … Read more >>

Financial Times 17,107 by PETO

May 30, 2022 at 9:35 am by Teacow

Peto offers us a good, but challenging start to the week.

Guardian Quiptic 1,176/Carpathian

May 30, 2022 at 9:10 am by Pierre

A fine crossword from Carpathian, which hits the spot for a Quiptic nicely, I think. A generous grid, some Easy Annies to get going with, no obscure words, a nice variety of devices. … Read more >>

Independent 11,116 by Angel

May 30, 2022 at 9:00 am by NealH

This was mostly on the easy side, but a few required some thinking to work out the correct parsing.

Guardian Cryptic 28,770 by Anto

May 30, 2022 at 8:58 am by manehi

A fun start to the week – favourites today were 10ac, 14ac, 3dn, 7dn, and 15dn. Thanks to Anto

Everyman 3,945

May 29, 2022 at 12:42 am by John

A pleasant crossword from Everyman. There were several anagrams — no bad thing in a crossword that’s intended to be on the easy side, but some of the fodder was a bit tortuous and didn’t really lend itself to elegant surfaces. I often didn’t get them until I had plenty of crossers.

Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (for anagrams, homophones, first letters, reversals etc) in italics. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*. Link-words in green.