Message from Dave Tilley:

I am delighted to announce that the proposed collection of Bunthorne puzzles will be available within two or three weeks.

Thanks to the very kind support of the Guardian who have underwritten the cost of the printing of the book, it will be a 48 page A5 book containing some of his finest puzzles from 1971 onwards, plus some of his work for other sources. There will also be a tribute puzzle from Enigmatist and Paul.

The cost will be £5, plus postage (£1 UK and £2-£3 overseas). A special account is being set up and you will be able to pay directly into the account, send a cheque or hopefully use a Paypal account if you are overseas.

The print run is limited strictly to 500, which will raise at least £2500 for Medecins Sans Frontieres, Bob’s pet charity. Any surplus postage monies will be added to the fund.

A special email address has been set up for copies to be ordered. The address is bunthornebook at btinternet dot com.

Solving time : about 20 minutes.

I noticed before writing this that Virgilius appears in the Independent today and that there is, as usual, a theme. Well, this puzzle from Virgilius’s alter ego is no exception. It took a while for the theme to dawn, though it was staring me in the face before I had filled in a single answer. The grid contains four black aitches running diagonally across the it. After about half of the across clues had gone in with no obvious connection between the answers I noticed an aitch at the end of each across answer ending on the right edge of the grid and at the start of each across answer starting on the left edge of the grid. The extra checking that this gave meant a very speedy end as the last few answers fell into place.

Solving time : yonks, bits of two 40 minute bus journeys with interruptions

This is a delayed post due to problems uploading the review last night, Neil stepping in when I didn’t appear. The following comments were made before reading Neil’s review. Perhaps it was tough then!

I found this one very tough. I don’t think the puzzle was difficult per se, I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind for it. It didn’t help that I didn’t know a word in one clue at all, that’s doosra in 15ac. This left me without one of the long answers and so struggling with half the grid for a good while. The anagram at 4dn hardly jumped out at me either.

Solving time: 11:30

First step: have a look at the grid. Notice that starting at the black cross next to 12, and emerging at the other side in the one next to 22, you can draw a line that only goes through two white squares - the 6th in 3D and the 7th in 11D (duck through the ‘diagonal gaps’ in between). Confident in the knowledge that Virgulius wouldn’t use a diagram with this fault for a plain puzzle, watch for a theme. Sure enough, there is one - crosses - the word cross appears in the 10-letter entries on the edges, and two types of cross are answers at 12 and 21. And of course there are four black crosses in the grid (one referred to in 21’s clue, so they definitely count), plus arguably two black St Andrews crosses in the middle. Brian Greer, the man behind Virgilius, is based in the US and seems to have picked up the “thematic elements at symmetrical positions” principle and applied it in many of his recent thematic puzzles. A nice cross-fertilisation echo of crosswords crossing the Atlantic 80-odd years ago.

Solving time: 16’

Mixture of clichéd crossword idioms and some clever wordplay. As usual, not a shaky surface in sight.

Apologies for not posting this yesterday – there’s a complicated story involving Geneva, stolen passport, Berne and lots of driving. Couldn’t find The Guardian at the Zurich airport so I tried The Independent. Oh and never park your car right next to a sign saying: “Beware of thieves operating in this area!” It doesn’t protect you.

Across

Down