Andrew

An enjoyable puzzle from Brummie with some helpful anagrams to get things going. Thanks to the setter. Getting 12a and 22a early on led me to the theme of Andy Warhol and his … Read more >>

A very quick solve for me, helped by the generous number of anagrams, and a corresponding reduction in the usual cryptic and double defnitions. Tbanks to Rufus.             … Read more >>

An interesting puzzle from Shed – mostly quite straightforward (with a large number of reversals) , but with a couple of unfamiliar words, and I took longer than I should have in the … Read more >>

A fairly typical Chifonie puzzle, with lots of charades and other straightforward constructions, but none the worse for that. A couple of answers may be unfamiliar to some. but they’re clearly clued. Thanks … Read more >>

I rattled through most of this pretty quickly, helped by a lot of anagrams and some other rather obvious clues. I have a nagging worry that I’m missing a theme here, but I … Read more >>

An entertaining and not-too-difficult puzzle from Picaroon. I spotted the theme almost immediately from 9a and 10a, but it didn’t help greatly, as all of the 13 fish (shown in blue below) have … Read more >>

A very quick solve for me today, with the exception of 4d, which held me up at the end. Fewer cryptic definitions than usual, I think, which helps; the ones we do have … Read more >>

Qaos rounds off an excellent week of Guardian puzzles. I always look for a ghost theme with Qaos: I thought it was going to be food, with POULTRY, BREAD, PUDDING and GARLIC, but … Read more >>

Good-quality stuff from Imogen. In the reverse of my usual pattern I started off quite quickly, with the help 1a and 1d coming early, but had a few problems later on, especially in … Read more >>

I blogged my first ever Philistine about a month ago, and here he is again. And a very fine puzzle too, with more ingenious clueing, including a few examples where the answer is … Read more >>

At the risk of repeating myself, I am still not warming to Otterden’s style. Although there are some nice ideas here, but there are just too many examples where, for me, the cryptic … Read more >>

A pleasant surprise to see Nutmeg’s name today, but this was definitely not your usual “easy” Monday puzzle, with a couple of obscure words and some tricky clueing. So, a slight shock to … Read more >>

Well, that was fun! Another of Tramp’s puzzles where many of the clues are related to a theme, but almost no knowledge of the theme is needed to solve them. The theme of … Read more >>