A tough week, I thought, especially without online access to Chambers any more. Apologies for the late-ish blog.

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I seemed to race through this one unaided, though almost inevitably not without a slip. At 15dn I substituted in an initial M, in the optimistic hope that MACE might mean “reprimand” somehow.

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A relatively manageable week I think, albeit followed by a pretty tentative blog as I no longer have online access to Chambers. I wonder if I’m the only one having trouble re-subscribing, or indeed even getting a response from them.

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This was one of those that went in very quickly indeed, but that I couldn’t quite finish unaided. In fact, if anyone got 15ac purely from the anagram then I’d be very impressed!

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A pretty tough week, I found. Despite the auspicious puzzle number, I don’t see any Hastings-related material here, but then I will tend to miss whole themes entirely. 19ac remains unexplained.

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A rather interrupted solve for me, this one: initially tackled in two sessions separated by a week in Scotland, with the last two entries remaining unsolved several additional days later. I’ve reproduced the two clues at 29ac and 25dn in case readers fancy helping out.

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Another relatively swift solve for me this week, with only 2dn forcing me to turn to Chambers in the hope that there wouldn’t be too many entries in there beginning with those six letters!

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Either I’m getting the hang of things, or this was a relatively straightforward week. I think I finished mostly unaided, just checking a few of the more obscure terms in Chambers before writing them in. Good stuff all the same.

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Despite a good crop of longer entries, I seemed to find Beelzebub relatively straightforward this week, making my way through unaided, with just the one slip at 5dn.

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A tough week, I think. I haven’t been able to pull together all the elements in the wordplay for 11ac just yet.

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After the first four across entries fell straight in, I thought this might be an easy one. Not so, but I got there. In two clues the wordplay escapes me, however, and I’ve reproduced the clues for those in case passers-by fancy a look.

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Apologies for a delayed post again. The usual top quality puzzle, with the bonus of several good long anagrams this week. I think I found this one of average difficulty, but made life harder for myself by writing in SERENE at 21dn without fully understanding why.

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Slightly late, slightly rushed post this week, but a quality puzzle as always.

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A tough week, I found. I’m still a little 34ac with regard to explanations for 22ac.

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I found this to be an average week, in terms of difficulty. There remain one or two details that elude me for the time being.

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Back down to earth with a bump for me, after doing very well indeed the last couple of weeks. There’s a fair bit in here that I can’t explain, and even a bit of guesswork, I’m afraid.

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Well I never, two weeks running with a correctly-filled grid and not so much as a look at Chambers. This week did feel a lot tougher than last week though, and by the time the NE corner came together I was all but guessing. It’s a credit to the setter that it’s possible to work out so many unfamiliar terms purely through diligent attention to the very fair clues. Beelzebub remains a very satisfying solve, and one I’d recommend to all Fifteensquared readers.

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Brilliant, finally a whole Beelzebub completed without recourse to references, and in reasonably good time too. Whilst I’d like to think I’m getting better, it seems more likely that this was a relatively easy week.

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This seemed a very hard one to get in to, with six twelve-letter entries and a good handful of eights and nines. Solving time was therefore spent mostly on the first half of the clues. I may have been making unnecessarily heavy weather of things though, as of course everything seems quite clear with the benefit of hindsight!

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This seemed a tough week for me, reaching for the dictionary with about two entries written in. I think it was just the vocabulary that did for me, as the clueing seems clear and there’s nothing that didn’t make sense in the end.

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A mixed one for me, initially thinking I’d be done in record time, but eventually almost failing to finish at all. 5dn is yet to be explained.

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A very nearly pangrammatic grid this week. No sign of a K, however. I suppose it’s not impossible that I’ve slipped up somewhere, but I’m fairly confident that it isn’t there.

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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!

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The usual top-quality puzzle, perhaps a little easier that the last couple of toughies we’ve had.

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Blimey this was a tough one. That, plus most of the week spent at a conference means this week’s posting is a little late.

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