YORK SLOGGERS & BETTERS 2026
Friday 23rd-Sunday 25th October 2026 I’m pleased to announce that the York Sloggers & Betters event is once again scheduled for “Clock Weekend”, allowing everyone an extra hour to recover from Friday and … Read more >>
Everyman 4,156
Most of the usual things are here and highlighted in the grid. A pleasant crossword from Everyman, and the only criticisms are not very major and indicated in the blog.
Definitions in crimson (?? It looks as if I’ve made a mistake in setting things: the answers are in crimson but not the definitions; sorry), underlined. Indicators (homophone, hidden, containment, anagram, juxtaposition, etc) in italics. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*. Link-words in green.
Gemelo No. 37
An excellent crossword, not easy but — as should be the case — its difficulties were conquerable with some persistence. It seems to me that, with one or two very very slight exceptions, Gemelo has been scrupulous in his accuracy.
My guess is that anyone who does these crosswords will have a copy of Chambers to hand and so won’t need everything to be spelled out. In the parsing I have confined myself to explaining when the wordplay is not immediately clear.
Definitions in crimson, underlined. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*
Independent 12,387 by Mog
Hello everyone
“To err is human, to nearly blog the answers to a national paper crossword a day early: moronic”
Guardian Quick Cryptic 116 by Chandler
This week’s 11 x 11 crossword from the Guardian intended to teach cryptic crosswords, found here
Private Eye (Cyclops / 832) Restrain Nominee
A fun one once again, taking me a while to get into, with plenty of nice PDMs.
Listener 4922 Elap Relationship
Few numerical Listeners are a walk in the park, but Elap’s exceptional Relationship
required ropes, harness, helmet and ice axes to reach its stratospheric summit.
Financial Times 18,404 by SOLOMON
A fun challenge indeed, from SOLOMON .
Guardian Cryptic 30037 Yank
Thank you to Yank. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Independent 12386 / Phi
It’s Friday, so, as with most Fridays, we have a puzzle from Phi in the Independent.
Independent 12,385 by Bluejacket
This is Bluejacket’s fourth Thursday puzzle of 2026, and I’ve been the blogger for three of them in a row: perhaps he’s on the same four-week cycle as the Indy blogging rota.
Financial Times 18,403 by STEERPIKE
A typical Steerpike puzzle.
Guardian Cryptic crossword No 30,036 by Paul
The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/30036.
Enigmatic Variations No. 1750 – Protegees by Vismut
“Eight across clues have an extra word to be removed before solving; its position in the clue indexes which of its letters to select. When read in clue order these letters might be a description of someone and when unjumbled what they were interested in. A nickname occupies the top row of the grid and the names of the PROTEGEES it refers to run around the rest of the perimeter. The unclued entries should be completed with their study groups, one of which is hanging upside down. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”