Never knowingly undersolved
Skinny provides the Tuesday challenge. Ah! I thought; this grid will have a message round the outside. Wrong! There was a theme though which I spotted towards the end of … Read more >>
Super challenge from Basilisk. Took me longer than usual to get through this puzzle – a good thing in my book! I had to seek assistance on 15d which had me stumped but … Read more >>
As always, a sound and pleasing Quiptic from Pan. I have given full explanations for those still a little mystified by cryptic conventions, but if there is anything that isn’t clear, you only … Read more >>
Another very witty puzzle from Bluth, who first appeared as an Independent setter a few months ago and seems to have settled in as a regular contributor. The clues range from fairly easy … Read more >>
The commenters on the Guardian website seem to like this one, so who am I to argue? I’ll be frank. This was not my type of puzzle, but one man’s meat is another … Read more >>
It had to happen sometime – I have finally solved one of these in one pass. It took about half hour – I was making notes for the blog as I went so … Read more >>
The Observer crossword from July 5, 2020 A nice crossword, perhaps a bit chewier than usual for an Everyman? Of course, we had another Primarily clue (one that was quite amusing). Plus a … Read more >>
Tees has become a regular IoS setter recently. I found this more tricky than many a Tees puzzle, but that could just have been me being a bit mentally sluggish this morning. … Read more >>
A misprint puzzle from Azed that I have completed, but not fully parsed. I solved this puzzle over four sittings, and have had to give up on the parsing of one answer (1ac) … Read more >>
An enjoyable puzzle from Dalibor today, with a few ‘might-have-been-topical’ clues?…(if it hadn’t have been for those pesky Covids…)…and some suspicious looking ‘unches’ around the perimeter…
Quite a cryptic preamble this week – clues are normal and then a number of extracts to be found – works by the unclued entry. This entry is then to be changed to … Read more >>
A fun puzzle with a subtle theme of misdirections. I probably wouldn’t have noticed the theme here, except that I managed to join the first 20 minutes of John Halpern’s zoom call last … Read more >>
A nice challenge. Thank you to Picaroon. Definitions are underlined in the clues. Across 1 Act weakly to have debts seized by creditor (5) COWER : OWE(to have debts outstanding) contained in(seized by) … Read more >>
It’s the end of another week and once again it’s Phi-Day. It’s always a pleasure to blog a Phi puzzle as even when you think you have finished you are still looking for … Read more >>
An excellent workout from WANDERER that I was only able to crack with dogged determination. Thanks to Setter (!!) D stands for DOG throughout the crossword FF: 10 DD: 9 ACROSS 1 BRAVADO … Read more >>