New Year’s Eve puzzle by Dac (appeared in the paper but not on the website apparently).   Solving time, 28 mins.

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The Indy under its editor, Eimi, who took over early in 2006, continued in 2008 its pattern of puzzles, many of which have themes and/or Ninas.  A Nina is a hidden message in  the grid not necessary for solving but which can certainly speed it up if you see it emerging!   (Named after the American artist Al Hirschfield who liked to incorporate the name of his daughter Nina into his sketches.)

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This was rather tough going until we got the Hogmanay message around the outside (FOR THE SAKE OF AULD LANG SYNE), but good fun nonetheless. There are a few bits of devious wordplay that took quite a while to work out.

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What better way to end the year than with a Cinephile? Perhaps by not having the solution printed on the same page (with the number for tomorrow’s puzzle rather than yesterday’s)! Methinks someone has started celebrating the New Year rather early.

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Good stuff from Glow-Worm, whose recent Listener puzzle is still on my to-do pile. There’s a mini theme here, with 4 answers contaning the word PLUS and a further reference at 1A. I struggled with some less common words which I’m guessing were needed to fit the theme. Read the rest of this entry »

dd = double definition
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(fodder) = anagram

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Two words (12a, 17d) were new to me but both were easily obtainable from wordplay.

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*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone

An enjoyable puzzle with a good mix of clues. The only one I didn’t follow was 21 down. Read the rest of this entry »

What a treat! I have been so looking forward to my first Araucaria blog but didn’t expect to get it on a Monday. [That's not to say I wouldn't have been glad to get the usual Rufus!] This was not one to rush: there was so much to savour – both old favourite plays to revisit and elegant clues to delight in. Classic Araucaria. [I initially thought there were no anagrams but there was just one - and a bit.]

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Happy Boxing Day y’all. I found some of this quite tough, possibly because I initially got 5D wrong and am unsure on a few others. Some nice clues though from a new-ish setter who is improving with every puzzle. Read the rest of this entry »

Solvers were told that nine clue-answers had to be jumbled to form new real-word grid entries. We were also told that the first letters of these nine clues would spell a word, referred to as X. There were two unclued entries at 1 across and 12 down. We were then advised that we would have to determine ‘12 down X 1 across’ The next instruction was fairly cryptic – viz, the top ten of ‘12 X 1′ may read (3,7). Further, the probable all-time world number one (8) had to be highlighted as had the full version (8,5,9) of the acronym in the top three, and their only UK number one (6). On the first read though the preamble was therefore fairly obscure. to say the least. However all became clear as pennies dropped throughout this enjoyable puzzle.

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This was the first Saturday Indy that I have attempted and so I cannot say how it compares with the usual fare. I found most of it easy, with nearly 90% of the answers going in within a few minutes. The remaining 10% or so took about the same amount of time again.

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Christmas puzzle, with one 47-letter answer over 5 normal grid entries – this made it a more difficult puzzle than usual from Quixote, but I was eventually able to work it out as crossing letters helped along with the anagram fodder. Solving time, 32 mins.

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MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR
Monday FT Prize Crossword on 15 December 2008
dd = double definition
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(fodder) = anagram

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FT Weekend prize puzzle from December 13
I found this a nicely challenging puzzle although I was left with three clues whose wordplay I did not initially understand. Since the deadline for entries was earlier than usual, I could have published this blog yesterday but I failed to notice in time. My apologies if you were anxiously waiting!

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A late blog today because this one caused me some problems, particularly in the NE corner. All the across answers are Biblical Characters and most lived BC. A number of them are obscure to say the least, well in my opinion anyway,  and some do not appear in the lists of biblical names that I have found on the web. A copy of the Bradford or Chambers crossword dictionary may have helped but unfortunately I don’t have a copy of either.

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Am solving and blogging now after a night out knowing that I won’t get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow/this morning.. surprisingly easy for a Paul, I felt, with a lot of easyish clues among the many nice ones. Merry Christmas all… anyone else get to open their presents by this afternoon ?

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Nimrod is undoubtedly very imaginative and some of the clues here are lovely, but there are, as I always find with this setter, one or two places where he seems to teeter on the edge of acceptability. The grid has only 22 clues, half of them with more unchecked letters than checked, and two of them simply 2 out of 5; some people (quite justifiably in my opinion) don’t like it when they have _E_E_ and there are hundreds of possibilities (178 actually, according to Word Matcher). 22 clues is about as small a number of clues as I’ve ever met in a 15×15 cryptic: Nimrod will probably take this as a challenge to provide even fewer. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the first Pasquale that I’ve done as a blogger, and sadly I have very little time to devote to it – so apologies for not including more commentary, links, etc. Anyway, this was an excellent puzzle, with marvellous surface readings and lots of enjoyable “a-ha!” moments. My one reservation is 25 across (particularly since I’m in Italy at the moment!)

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Rishi is away at a family gathering so I am covering for him today. A ‘liquid’ theme from Gozo, apt for the time of year. Having at one time run my own public house and restaurant, most of the thematic entries were well known to me but I cannot say I have ever served mate, tisane or crusta (and there wasn’t much demand for sake!

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A most unusual and innovative crossword, that I found quite hard before finally getting there in 49 mins. The idea was that in line with 15 across A COMEDY OF ERRORS, there were mistakes in the puzzle in those clues marked with a *. A few where I don’t quite see what is going on, so any help would be appreciated.

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As sometimes happens, I filled in the grid very quickly but took a while to come up with the reasoning behind some of the clues.

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*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone

A gentle start to Christmas week from Dac with some well-written and enjoyable clues. Read the rest of this entry »

A few reasonably tricky clues this time, and a bit of a panic when stuck on 4D, so quite satisfying to finish this one in the end.

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A fairly standard Azed, I think.  Lots of words of which I’d never heard, fairly predictable and verified in Chambers, and as usual a very well-constructed grid, with words of many lengths (except that Azed has never in my experience sunk to using three-letter words). Read the rest of this entry »