Posted by Mister Sting on July 31st, 2010
I wonder if I was alone in finding this tough.
In retrospect, the preamble wasn’t unnecessarily misleading. Nor at any time did I think the clueing unfair. Still, for me this EV was one heck of a struggle. There were precious few gifts (11ac being a notable exception), but I certainly wasn’t helped by my synapses declaring a ceasefire.
Posted in Enigmatic Variations | 2 Comments »
Posted by shuchi on July 30th, 2010
A very entertaining puzzle, my picks for favourites today are 12a, 28a, 20d. I started from the bottom of the grid and worked my way up, with a pause to check the answer for 14a.
Posted in FT | 7 Comments »
Posted by John on July 30th, 2010
A very nice offering from Raich, who has been an excellent addition to the Independent stable this year. I even saw the Nina. Something that many people get very excited about happened on this day once (I won’t say the date because it may be visible to the casual observer, who would then get less pleasure). The whole team has been cleverly incorporated in the answers (although there may be some subtlety that has passed me by with the Charltons but see later).
Posted in Independent | 20 Comments »
Posted by manehi on July 30th, 2010
Probably my quickest Araucaria solve to date, with several straightforward anagrams and the Keynes reference giving me the bottom half in next to no time.
Posted in Guardian | 50 Comments »
Posted by petebiddlecombe on July 29th, 2010
This was pretty much the opposite experience of the Raich puzzle with the World Cup theme. The thematic content was a ‘anagram and one letter change’ 7-letter word chain, the first and last words of which came from extra letters in across clue wordplay, and the rest from unclued answers. The chain turned out to be: STEPHEN, PESANTE, PEASANT, NAMASTE, AMENTAL, MATINAL, MATILDA. Apart from Stephen and Matilda being names, this sequence didn’t suggest much. Google searches after completing the grid revealed that England’s only King Stephen came to the throne in 1135 (the puzzle number). He was married to one Matilda, and replaced another Matilda as monarch – my guess is that the Matilda of this puzzle is his wife, as the natural word ladder treatment of the other seems to be a change from MATILDA to STEPHEN rather than the other way. The note from Mike Laws below tells me that with more careful research I’d have discovered that the Empress Matilda from whom he took the throne replaced him (at least briefly) in 1141 (1135 plus 6), so the puzzle’s title is about more than the word chain, and the order of the word chain DOES relate to the theme. Over the next 17 years or so, I guess we can expect to see more puzzles based on this kind of theme, though I’d expect the thematic treatment in some to be more closely related to the theme – here, the only link I can see is the match in length of the names STEPHEN and MATILDA. I finished up a bit unhappy with the puzzle because (with my incomplete research) there was no real penny-drop moment, though I can see that for people with better historical knowledge, there could have been one.
Posted in Inquisitor | 8 Comments »
Posted by smiffy on July 29th, 2010
Another bout of Falconry for the Thursday slot. Progress seemed a little too easy in parts, with the gradient never getting beyond a gentle slope, but I did particularly enjoy 9A and 19D along the way.
Posted in FT | 9 Comments »
Posted by nmsindy on July 29th, 2010
I found this a quite easy puzzle from Phi, solving time 16 mins, with 4 answers in the NW corner taking the final 6 mins after I managed the rest in a very quick time indeed for me, 10 mins.
Posted in Independent | 11 Comments »
Posted by mhl on July 29th, 2010
I’ve mentioned a couple of grumbles below, but overall I thought this was an enjoyable (and mostly quite easy) solve
Posted in Guardian | 32 Comments »
Posted by Handel on July 29th, 2010
We are proud to say that we raced through this one, and although we didn’t time ourselves, we had only drunk half of our pints before finishing it!
Posted in Independent | 1 Comment »
Posted by Uncle Yap on July 29th, 2010
Monday Prize Crossword on 19 July 2010
Mr Smoothie is back again with his unique brand of slick surface and economy of words for his clues. Very few wasted words and yet so smooth, the surfaces
Posted in FT | No Comments »
Posted by Pete Maclean on July 29th, 2010
Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of July 10
Here’s another puzzle with a slew of great Cincinnusian clues. How about 27A (ELDER) and 10A (PRISONERS)? Just brilliant. And I marvel at the inventiveness of clues for such simple words as TALK (20A) and SHELL (7D).
Posted in FT | No Comments »
Posted by Simon Harris on July 28th, 2010
A rather interrupted solve for me, this one: initially tackled in two sessions separated by a week in Scotland, with the last two entries remaining unsolved several additional days later. I’ve reproduced the two clues at 29ac and 25dn in case readers fancy helping out.
Posted in Beelzebub | 2 Comments »
Posted by Simon Harris on July 28th, 2010
This was quite an interesting one, with the left side feeling far tougher than the right, which fell into place pretty quickly. Many of the surface readings here seem remarkably smooth, though maybe that’s always the case with Dac puzzles, and I haven’t stopped to appreciate them enough in the past!
Posted in Independent | 15 Comments »
Posted by Gaufrid on July 28th, 2010
There seemed to be more double/cryptic definitions than we are used to in a Cinephile puzzle, and there wasn’t much evidence of his trademark liberties, so I didn’t find this as enjoyable as some of his offerings.
Posted in FT | 5 Comments »
Posted by Eileen on July 28th, 2010
I must admit I enjoyed this more than I expected when I saw the name of the setter. There were, perhaps, rather a lot of anagrams – some good ones, though, a couple of unfamiliar words [fairly clued] and some nice surfaces. I have fewer quibbles than I usually have with this setter.
Posted in Guardian | 42 Comments »
Posted by Ali on July 27th, 2010
A characteristically clever puzzle from Virgilius, with plenty of thematic stuff to chew on in the clues and completed grid. x and y can be used in cryptic clues in a variety of guises, nearly all of which appear to be covered here! Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Independent | 13 Comments »
Posted by Gaufrid on July 27th, 2010
Agentzero has been delayed whilst returning home from a business trip so here is my analysis of today’s puzzle.
Posted in FT | 15 Comments »
Posted by Uncle Yap on July 27th, 2010
Life is good. Last week, I drew The Master and then we all had a fantastic bonanza of John/Jane wedding puzzles for the weekend and today I get to blog Paul, another one of my favourites, following so closely after yesterday’s Mudd in FT. Paul was, as usual, challenging as well as humorously entertaining.
Posted in Guardian | 58 Comments »
Posted by NealH on July 26th, 2010
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Independent | 14 Comments »
Posted by Andrew on July 26th, 2010
This was slightly harder than the average Rufus, I thought – most of it was straightforward as usual, but the last few answers held me up longer than usual. There were a couple of double definitions that I found rather unsatisfactory, and I had one or two other niggles too. On the other hand, 18dn was a particularly nice clue.
Posted in Guardian | 27 Comments »
Posted by Andrew on July 25th, 2010
A pretty easy Azed this week: with some judicious guessing of unfamiliar words (which one gets quite good at after solving these puzzles for several decades) I managed to finish this in less than an hour with no aids at all. On the other hand, writing up the blog has required numerous references to Chambers to confirm the details. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Azed | 7 Comments »
Posted by The Trafites on July 25th, 2010
The Trafites: Due to a sad week, the blog was a bit rushed today; this in memory of my dear wife’s brother, Polly, who died on Friday.
Posted in Everyman | 6 Comments »
Posted by rightback on July 24th, 2010
Solving time: 11 mins
This was really fun to solve and included six examples of Spoonerisms, where the initial sounds of a two-word phrase are switched. Most of the other clues were straightforward but three answers (DOTTED LINE, IGLOO and PROXY) had me stumped for several minutes.
Posted in Guardian | 16 Comments »
Posted by twencelas on July 24th, 2010
So a relatively simple preamble this week. Two unclued answers, some answers that don’t fill their available space and some UPWARD MOTION to fill the spaces at the end. All the clues are straight cryptic with nothing hidden – Sounds like an entry-level EV to me, but is it? But more importantly, I can use my pen again!
Posted in Enigmatic Variations | 2 Comments »
Posted by nmsindy on July 23rd, 2010
A special puzzle to mark a special day as Nimrod and Jetdoc marry. A puzzle that nmsindy found extremely hard with a massive anagram, eventually after about 2 hours had to confess defeat on that and on some other clues. Did get fairly far with it but could not crack the SE corner and even with quite a few letters could not see the long entry tho MARRIED looked part of it all right. Many thanks to Gaufrid for explaining those ones I missed.
Posted in Independent | 18 Comments »