Independent 7,318/Dac
Posted by Ali on 31st March 2010
More brilliance from Dac. As good a set of clues as I’ve seen in a long while, although he’s stumped me on 15D!
Posted in Independent | 13 Comments »
Archive for March, 2010
Guardian 24,972 – Enigmatist
Posted by Andrew on 31st March 2010
As is often the case with Enigmatist, I found it quite hard to get started on this one. Getting the long linked answers helped a lot, but even then there were some tricky corners. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Guardian | 36 Comments »
Financial Times 13,348 / Cinephile
Posted by Gaufrid on 31st March 2010
Not a lot to say today. The puzzle didn’t seem to have any sparkle though my feelings about it may have been affected by the high winds and heavy rain that are making the morning rather dismal.
Posted in FT | 7 Comments »
Financial Times 13,347 / Dante
Posted by Agentzero on 30th March 2010
Apologies to all — I did not have a chance to blog until quite late today.
Posted in FT | 3 Comments »
Independent 7317/Virgilius
Posted by John on 30th March 2010
Typical brilliance from Virgilius. At first I thought, after predicting confidently that the long word across was going to be SYMMETRICAL, what’s the big deal? All crosswords are symmetrical. Then I saw it (not immediately, having got so used to Virgilius using the across answers to illustrate his theme): all the down answers use only the letters A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W, X, Y, so that they all have a vertical line of symmetry (not the rotational symmetry of the crossword grid). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Independent | 22 Comments »
Guardian 24971 – Gordius
Posted by Uncle Yap on 30th March 2010
Quite an enjoyable set of clues. I like it when compilers consciously try to inject some humour into their clues as we see in 1A, 21A, 26A and 14D.
Posted in Guardian | 23 Comments »
Indepedent 7316 by Morph
Posted by NealH on 29th March 2010
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Independent | 8 Comments »
Guardian 24,970 (Brendan)
Posted by diagacht on 29th March 2010
This has not been a good day for me: two clues I have not decoded and some others that I find unsatisfactory, which probably means I’ve missed something. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Guardian | 41 Comments »
Private Eye/Cyclops 413 – Drag me down
Posted by beermagnet on 29th March 2010
Our text today is taken from St Eter of the Managras:
Yea, it is harder for a good man to answer the inquiry of Chilcot than a Queen Bee to enter a Myrtle. Or something like that anyway.
Posted in Private Eye/Cyclops | 1 Comment »
Beelzebub 1,048 (21/03/2010)
Posted by Simon Harris on 28th March 2010
I’d say this was about average difficulty for Beelzebub, without too much to comment on, other than the unusually large number of abbreviations used – which became evident on formatting the HTML for this post!
Posted in Beelzebub | No Comments »
Azed 1973
Posted by jetdoc on 28th March 2010
For me, this was very much at the easy end of the Azed spectrum, though I needed a dictionary to check a few words. No special favourite clue this week, though there are several I like.
Posted in Azed | 3 Comments »
Everyman 3312
Posted by Arthur on 28th March 2010
This was nice and pretty gentle. The main features worth noting are three 15-letter anagrams and a rather nice long even-letters clue. If I was in a complaining mood I would say that it would have been more impressive if all four long clues were anagrams, but as it is, this passed the time very pleasantly. 15dn, I am still not wholly sure on part of it, but I’m sure I’ll be put right nice and quickly on here. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Everyman | 5 Comments »
Enigmatic Variations 906: Recognition by Kruger
Posted by Dave Hennings on 27th March 2010
Kruger has been setting EV puzzles for over ten years, with a puzzle every four or five months, and the occasional Inquisitor for good measure. I have always found his crosswords fair, but quite taxing, and covering a wide range of themes. This puzzle proved fairly tough, especially my last clue, 3dn! This necessitated a correction in the following week’s paper.
Posted in Enigmatic Variations | No Comments »
Guardian 24,963 (Sat 20 Mar)/Araucaria – Daysed and confused
Posted by rightback on 27th March 2010
Solving time: 33 mins
This was hard, and I was grateful for a couple of hackneyed clues at 12ac (INCA) and 28ac (DETERGENT) to get me going. The theme (abbreviations for days of the week being unclued in wordplay to ten answers) jumped out early on from 16dn (FRICASSEE) and I expected that to open the floodgates, but no. Still, I got there in the end.
Posted in Guardian | 23 Comments »
Financial Times 13,344 / Falcon
Posted by Gaufrid on 26th March 2010
Unfortunately Shuchi is unable to join us today so here is a substitute analysis. A fairly straightforward puzzle in the main but I have to admit that I had never heard of 12ac or 19ac before today and 27ac was only a very dim memory.
Posted in FT | 5 Comments »
Guardian 24,968 / Bonxie
Posted by Eileen on 26th March 2010
A reasonably straightforward puzzle from Bonxie, with some nice touches. I have some quibbles with two or three definitions.
Posted in Guardian | 42 Comments »
Independent 7,314 by Phi
Posted by Simon Harris on 26th March 2010
It’s a while since I blogged a Friday Phi, so either I’m a little rusty or this was quite a tough one.
Posted in Independent | 7 Comments »
Independent 7309 – Saturday Prize Puzzle by Nimrod
Posted by duncanshiell on 26th March 2010
I found this hard and took a good afternoon to solve it. There were a couple of words or phrases I had not come across before, namely CACOETHES SCRIBENDI and PULQUE. I knew the first was an anagram and probably had SCRIBE… in the second word of the phrase. In the second word, PULQUE, I got the QUE alright, but I also hadn’t come across PULE meaning ‘pipe’ before. I wondered how obscure these words were, so I amused myself by looking them up on Google and seeing how many hits they each generated.
Posted in Independent | 2 Comments »
Financial Times 13,343 / Orense
Posted by smiffy on 25th March 2010
Another typically solid puzzle from Orense (does anyone know whether the correct pronunciation is O-rense or Oar-ense? I’ve always wondered.). One answer entered more in hope than expectation at 7D.
Posted in FT | 3 Comments »
Independent 7,313/Nestor
Posted by Ali on 25th March 2010
Apologies, I’ll need to be brief today, so won’t be able to give this the full treatment it deserves. I found this to be a tough but very enjoyable puzzle from Nestor. I often tend to struggle with single-word answers of 10+ letters – 6A and 8D being the culprits here – but got there in the end. There are some great clues in here, 17A and 12D being my pick of the bunch. And yes, there’s a Nina in there too!
Posted in Independent | 14 Comments »
Independent on Sunday 1049 by Quixote 21st March 2010
Posted by Handel on 25th March 2010
The usual enjoyable bag of tricks from Quixote. A couple of inventive clues stood out for us: 6 down and 17 across.
Posted in Independent | No Comments »
Guardian 24,967 – Orlando
Posted by Andrew on 25th March 2010
Good fun from Orlando today with a theme of famous Belgians, and a few references to Belgium in some of the clues as well. Sound and inventive clueing throughout, with some trickily-concealed defintiions and wordplay. There was a Famous Belgians puzzle from Paul just over a year ago which I also blogged, and which has (not surprisingly) a few answers in common with this one.
Posted in Guardian | 25 Comments »
Inquisitor 1117: 7 Down by Schadenfreude
Posted by HolyGhost on 25th March 2010
Each across answer produces a single clash with a down answer, the latter being the grid entry. The unentered letters are one definition of 7d, which itself cryptically indicates one item in each column, to be highlighted (63 cells).
Initially, pencilled-in answers don’t necessarily help that much with intersecting answers … but lots of clues could be solved cold, so once a clash has been identified, the remaining across letters are known to be part of the finished grid; and, when all but one of the letters in an across answer are confirmed, the remaining letter is known to give no additional help with the intersecting down answer.
Posted in Inquisitor | No Comments »
Financial Times 13,334 – Falcon
Posted by Uncle Yap on 25th March 2010
Monday Prize Crossword on 15 March 2010
Quite a varied potpourri of not-too-difficult clues. Very fair and entertaining.
Posted in FT | No Comments »
Financial Times 13,333 by Cincinnus
Posted by Pete Maclean on 25th March 2010
Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of March 15
I remember FT puzzle number 10,000 and now here we are a third of the way through another batch of 10,000. Cincinnus marks the occasion with an especially fine puzzle, highlighted by a smashing 6D. I also particularly like 9A, 13A and 21A. And there is one clue whose working I do not completely understand, 25A. Surely someone will fill me in.
Posted in FT | 5 Comments »