Andrew

I started off on Everyman in The Observer, and began solving Azed while I was a student at Cambridge (reading maths) shortly after it started. I do the Guardian puzzle most days and others sporadically. In real life I work as a software developer (still in Cambridge), and for non-crossword recreation play the piano and am involved in amateur theatre.

Azed 2537

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A minor delay with the late arrival of the PDF on the Guardian website, and then this turned out to be quite a tricky puzzle, with quite a lot of unfamiliar words. As … Read more >>

Guardian 28,355 – Paul

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Quite a tough one from Paul today, with some devious constructions that had me worried about whether I’d be able to explain everything. A couple of minor quibbles, but otherwise very enjoyable – … Read more >>

Guardian 28,341 – Philistine

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I found this quite easy by Philistine’s standards, though good fun as always. Thanks to Philistine. Stop press: just noticed a theme of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, with the titles of NORTHERN … Read more >>

Guardian 28,334 – Picaroon

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A clever and highly enjoyable puzzle from Picaroon based around 12d, with varying interpretations of the phrase. The gateway clue is quite an easy one, but it was still fun to work out … Read more >>

Guardian 28,327 – Vulcan

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I made rather slow progress on this at first, probably because of what seems like a large number cryptic and double definitions, but it’s all pretty straightforward in retrospect. Thanks to Vulcan.   … Read more >>

Azed 2531

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The last Azed of 2020 before the Christmas special, and quite a gentle one, I thought. Thanks as always to Azed.             Across 1. POGGE Hard-plated fish from … Read more >>

Guardian 28,312 – Vlad

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Vlad likes a bit of politics in his puzzles, and I think it’s no giveaway to say that here we are talking about the post-election shenanigans in the US, with all but  handful … Read more >>

Guardian 28,305 – Qaos

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I was able to solve this very quickly, helped by a lot of straightforward clues and by… …the theme, which I was lucky to spot early on from 8a, confirmed by 14a: it’s … Read more >>

Guardian 28,296 – Paul

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The email advertising Paul’s Zoom session tonight (see his website) has the title “Did I do this on purpose?” and says “Looking back over this puzzle there are a couple of coincidences.”… …I … Read more >>

Azed 2525

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A fairly typical Azed experience for me on this one, with most of the answers going in fairly quickly and a few stragglers holding out longer. It’s always good to solve a long … Read more >>