Posted by John on 14th March 2010
The usual very satisfactory offering from Azed. I have learned not to look too far for wonderful surfaces, but to admire the faultless construction of his clues. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by petebiddlecombe on 7th March 2010
A reasonably difficult puzzle for me, taking about an hour, with Chambers used a lot. I think part of the difficulty was not getting 1A or 13D quickly. Azed seems to have errred slightly at 35A.
Posted in Azed | 20 Comments »
Posted by Andrew on 28th February 2010
A puzzle of two halves, I found: I whizzed though about two-thirds very quickly and without aids, then struggled rather more to finish it off. As promised, I’ve done this blog in the style Nick introduced last week. The lateness of this post is mostly due to some (rather unsuccessful) last-minute tinkering with the layout. Comments on the format are welcome (as well as on the blog and the puzzle, of course). Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by The Trafites on 21st February 2010
Nick: I am trying a new format here, with the full clue next to the clue number and the solution with word play/comments underneath. Often when reading other blogs on this site, I would like to read the clue but alas they are sometimes inaccessible. If it appears too busy, please let me know.
Posted in Azed | 18 Comments »
Posted by bridgesong on 14th February 2010
So far as I can discover, this is the first Playfair competition puzzle for around two years, the last having been 1804, which must have been in December 2007 (probably the Christmas competition) and which doesn’t appear to have been blogged on this site. If Azed has used the format for a non-competition word since then, I don’t remember it. Accordingly, it’s probably worth giving some background to the format in some detail for those to whom it may be new.
Posted in Azed | 12 Comments »
Posted by jetdoc on 7th February 2010
Better late than never, I hope. I was relieved finally to retrieve my solved copy of this from the recycling bin, as I did not want to find time for re-solving it before doing the blog. The clues are fairly straightforward and — as always — absolutely sound, but I needed my dictionary to confirm the existence of quite a few words. I think the best Azeds are the ones where we learn new words, and this was definitely in that class.
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Posted by ilancaron on 31st January 2010
As per usual a wordplay or two which I’m not sure of. Somewhat harder than my last Azed outing (1958). And a surprised groan or two were elicited (Azed isn’t the most humorous setter in my opinion usually).
Across Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by John on 24th January 2010
It can hardly be that I am suddenly becoming quicker at these, but I found this unusually easy. Apart from the strangeness of some of the words, it presented no more problems than an average Times cryptic. It would be interesting to hear how others got on. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by petebiddlecombe on 17th January 2010
I found this a pretty tough Azed, making little progress in my initial cocky “no Chambers for me” mode, and requiring two solving sessions rather than one. Overall time was over an hour, and possibly about two.
The bottom half gave me more trouble than the top.
Posted in Azed | 5 Comments »
Posted by Andrew on 10th January 2010
Azed starts the new year (though not, please, the “second decade of the 21st Century” – that’s next year) with a puzzle that was mostly straightforward: I manage to complete most of it without Chambers but with a number of educated guesses. Some clues needed quite a bit of unravelling when I came to write up the blog though. Onward to Azed 2000 in September!
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Posted by The Trafites on 3rd January 2010
Nick: My first blog on AZED and luckily it was a (fairly!) straight forward plod after the herculean ‘Christmas Parcels’ competition (and what a word to clue to boot!). Some nice words this week (as usual) and also nice to learn some real meanings of words that get lost in modern day parlance.
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Posted by bridgesong on 3rd January 2010
This was one of the hardest Azeds that I can remember. I was certainly in need of the additional time allowed, even during a holiday period. I found that I needed to make constant reference to Chambers, but with one small exception, all the clues were perfectly fair. Compiling them is not easy, as I found with my attempt at the competition clue. Getting a sensible surface reading is almost impossible. I think that this is a variation on a puzzle type that Azed has used before at Christmas: certainly “parcels” comes up as having been used before if you search for it on the (excellent) & lit website.
Posted in Azed | 12 Comments »
Posted by jetdoc on 20th December 2009
An Azed of average difficulty this week, I think; I needed a dictionary to check several answers. The words ‘whample’ and ‘sprangle’ were both delightful discoveries. No clue stands out as favourite of the week, but I’ll give my vote to 10a.
Posted in Azed | 3 Comments »
Posted by ilancaron on 13th December 2009
Surprisingly fast solve for me — I spent less than an hour before breakfast doing this with a bit of help from the Usual Suspects. Until I came to a crashing halt with our Welsh footballer.
Across Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by John on 6th December 2009
As always with Azed apparently complete soundness in the wordplay of his clues; there are one or two places where I’m not sure how to explain this, but I suspect someone will do so. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Andrew on 22nd November 2009
An Azed of mixed difficulty, I found. I sailed through about three quarters of it with trouble at all, including most of the five long answers, but made much heavier weather of the last few clues.
Posted in Azed | 9 Comments »
Posted by petebiddlecombe on 15th November 2009
I’m hoping that this puzzle from last Sunday does not have a similar deadline extension to last week’s prize puzzle. If you know that it does, please let me know with a comment, and I’ll get this taken down again ASAP.
Posted in Azed | 9 Comments »
Posted by bridgesong on 15th November 2009
“Words may be false and full of art; sighs are the natural language of the heart”, by Thomas Shadwell is the quotation referred to here. The second part is obtained by the letters which are misprinted in the clues, the first part could be said to describe the setter’s aim. A normal misprints puzzle confines the misprints to the definition part of the clue, but here there are a number of clues with the misprint in the wordplay, even in anagrams. Having said that, there were a couple of fairly easy clues such as 35 across, 9 and 20 down to get started with and I found that it took me not much longer than usual to solve. I’ve put the misprinted words in italics in each case.
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Posted by Gaufrid on 8th November 2009
Due to the postal strike the closing date for entries has been put back to Saturday 14/11/2009 so today’s blog has been rescheduled for next Sunday.
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Posted by jetdoc on 1st November 2009
An Azed with a mix of easyish and fairly difficult clues, and a few pretty obscure words, which made it interesting to solve. I think I will go for 17a as my favorite clue this week; 24a is runner-up. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by ilancaron on 25th October 2009
Not as many impenetrable wordplays (note to self: must improve wordplay decoding). I’m sure once this is posted, someone will put us quickly out of our misery and reveal all. I will say that I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for the competition clue — not realizing this was a plain Azed.
Across Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by John on 18th October 2009
As always Azed produces a top-class grid, with four words crossing it completely and two more almost doing so. As a result, of course, there are many words that need a painstaking hunt through Chambers, but they are all clued soundly and fairly. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Gaufrid on 12th October 2009
Another occasion when I have to cast my mind back eight days to try and remember how I originally parsed these clues. My recollection is that I had a little difficulty with one or two of them and had to resort to on-line assistance for confirmation (eg ‘I loved Duncan’ in 6d and ‘eier’ in 26d).
Posted in Azed | 11 Comments »
Posted by Andrew on 4th October 2009
This was definitely from the easy end of the Azed spectrum: I managed to solve all of it except 31ac without recourse to Chambers or other aids (though with some lucky educated guesses). Read the rest of this entry »
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