The aim of this blog is to provide daily commentary and analysis of the Independent, Guardian, Financial Times and Private Eye cryptic crosswords. It was inspired by this and is maintained by a team of solvers, all addicted in various degrees to the black art of the cryptic crossword. We want to appeal to all types of solvers – new or experienced, fast or slow – and we welcome your comments and feedback.

What to Expect

Each day we’ll aim to post an analysis of that day’s crosswords. The weekend posts will be of the previous week’s crossword as they are competition puzzles with prizes so we don’t want to spoil it for anyone.

We will usually include all the answers to a puzzle so it’s best to visit the blog either after you’ve solved the puzzle or if you’re stuck and want a couple of answers to get you going again.

Current Coverage

Guardian/Observer – daily cryptic (including Saturdays),  Azed, Genius and Everyman.

Independent/IoS – daily puzzle (including Saturdays), Inquisitor and Beelzebub.

FT – daily including the Monday and Saturday prize puzzles.

Private Eye – Cyclops

Contributing

If you’re interested in getting involved as a blogger, please send an email to admin {at} fifteensquared {dot} net. You don’t need to be a fast solver but you should be able to complete a cryptic crossword more often than not.

Notation

You may see the following notation used to explain elements of some clues:

• * (asterisk) to indicate an anagram. E.g (orchestra)*
• “quote marks” to indicate a homophone. E.g PEALER = “peeler”.
• < to indicate that an element is to be reversed E.g PAN< is NAP.
• CAPITALS to indicate which bits are part of the answer. E.g “R in CREASE” means that “in” is not part of the answer.