Thanks Paul – this was an enjoyable struggle, with some tricky parsing to work through afterwards. My favourites were 15ac, 3/24, and 5dn.
Day: 10 September 2026
Independent 12,457 by Tack
Tack appears a few times a year in the Independent, but hasn’t landed in my blogging rota slot until now. The original puzzle is at https://puzzles.independent.co.uk/games/cryptic-crossword-independent/?puzzleDate=20260910.
Financial Times 18,476 by Slormgorm
A typically fun puzzle from Slormgorm today.
Enigmatic Variations No.1762 – Onlookers by Ifor
“Each clue is actually two clues run together. Either entry may be clued first; punctuation may mislead. Some answers are too short for their slots, and several others require two letters to occupy one cell; all enumerations count cells available. Cells in the latter group must each be divided by a diagonal line in a consistent way, entering one letter in each half such that entries read normally. Using the contents of these cells as a guide, solvers must insert an arrow in each vacant cell so that new words or phrases appropriate to the positions of the ONLOOKERS in the grid are symbolised. The Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended, but does not give the entry at 11 (in Collins and others).”