Everyman 3,909

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The problem with the current Everyman crosswords is that their difficulty varies so. There are some easy enough clues, of which many are quite good I think, but one or two really difficult ones. The aim, surely, is to have some sort of a gateway crossword which encourages new setters (yes I mean solvers, silly mistake, thanks Michelle@3) , and in its present form the Everyman crossword fails to do so, I should have thought. I’m not a fast solver at all, but the old Everyman used to take me about 20 minutes. This one so far (and I seem to have solved it and spent much time on the blog, but there is still quite a bit of tidying up remaining) has taken me about 2½ hours. If I weren’t doing the blog I’d probably have taken approaching an hour if I wanted, as I do (unlike most speed solvers), to be sure of the parsing at all stages.

Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (anagrams, hidden, reversal etc.) in italics.

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Azed 2570

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It is a plain Azed puzzle that forms the basis of the blog this week       I got quite a long way through the puzzle without looking in Chambers, but as … Read more >>

Guardian 28,553 / Paul

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It’s Paul rounding off a generally good week of puzzles. I found this fairly straightforward, to both solve and parse. There are some witty and ingenious clues – rather fewer of them, owing … Read more >>