Andrew – Page 40 – Fifteensquared

Guardian 27,161 – Rufus

Mon April 3, 2017 at 7:32 am by Andrew

The usual quick solve for a Monday morning. There are fewer of Rufus’s trademark cryptic definitions than usual in this one, but I have quibbles about quite a few of the cues, not … Read more >>

Guardian 27,159 – Tramp

Fri March 31, 2017 at 9:08 amFri March 31, 2017 at 7:38 am by Andrew

Once again Tramp has produced a puzzle with lots of thematic references in the clues, but without the need for solvers to know anything about the theme. It’s not giving anything away to … Read more >>

Guardian 27,152 – Picaroon

Thu March 23, 2017 at 12:23 pmThu March 23, 2017 at 7:59 am by Andrew

A very satisfying puzzle from Picaroon today, where I initially made slow progress but gradually made my way through it thanks to sound and inventive clueing. Nice one. … Read more >>

Guardian 27,145 – Tramp

Wed March 15, 2017 at 9:09 am by Andrew

I found this much harder than usual for Tramp, and some of the parsing eluded me for some time even after I’d filled in the answers. There’s an error in 8d, but it … Read more >>

Guardian 27,138 – Brummie

Tue March 7, 2017 at 8:35 am by Andrew

I started off rather slowly with this, but speeded up as things fell into place. There were a couple of rather obscure words, but all clearly clued. There’s a theme of cinema genres, … Read more >>

Guardian Genius 164 – Crucible

Sun March 5, 2017 at 12:05 am by Andrew

I’m sure the idea of replacing an answer with its ‘pair’ has been done in the Genius series before, but it gives plenty of scope to the setter. Some of the pairings here … Read more >>

Azed 2333

Sun March 5, 2017 at 12:05 am by Andrew

I rattled through most of this very quickly, but took at least as long again on the last half-dozen clues (I think the SW corner was the last to fall). Thanks to Azed … Read more >>

Guardian 27,131 – Rufus

Mon February 27, 2017 at 7:15 am by Andrew

This was a puzzle of two halves for me today – the top half was pretty much a write-in, with the bottom taking a bit longer, probably because of the preponderance of cryptic … Read more >>

Guardian 27,129 – Qaos

Fri February 24, 2017 at 11:48 amFri February 24, 2017 at 8:41 am by Andrew

Good fun from Qaos (with reservations on a couple of clues). As almost always with this setter we have a “ghost theme” in the solutions… … in this case John le Carré’s novel … Read more >>

Guardian 27,122 – Paul

Thu February 16, 2017 at 8:27 am by Andrew

My third Paul in a row as he marches through the week, and after a couple of slightly sub-par efforts he is back on form here. I particularly liked the two silly homphones, … Read more >>

Guardian 27,115 – Paul

Wed February 8, 2017 at 8:23 am by Andrew

There’s nothing particularly wrong with this, but somehow it didn’t entertain me as much as Paul’s puzzles usually do. Nevertheless there was some good stuff here – thanks to Paul. … Read more >>

Guardian 27,108 – Paul

Tue January 31, 2017 at 9:23 am by Andrew

Unusually, there was no Paul puzzle in Guardian last week, so here he is early on to compensate – maybe we’ll see him on Saturday as well. I found this one a bit … Read more >>

Guardian 27,101 – Rufus

Mon January 23, 2017 at 7:51 am by Andrew

A typical Rufus, with lots of double and cryptic definitions – some of the later being rather weak, I think, including one that seems not cryptic at all. Quite a few anagrams in … Read more >>

Azed 2327

Sun January 22, 2017 at 9:57 amSun January 22, 2017 at 12:05 am by Andrew

A medium-strength Azed, with a fairly high proportion of unfamilar words, in the wordplay as well as the answers. My solving pattern turned out to be more or less from top left to … Read more >>

Guardian 27,099 – Bonxie

Fri January 20, 2017 at 9:20 amFri January 20, 2017 at 8:47 am by Andrew

I made a slow start on this, but after a while had filled the bottom half. The top half took rather longer… For my taste there are rather too many inaccurate or ungrammatical … Read more >>