Andrew's avatarAndrew

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 2746

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I found this mostly not to hard on the Azed scale, though a few clues held me up at the end, especially the crossing pair 30a and 22d. I have a couple of … Read more >>

Guardian 29,612 – Paul

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I didn’t seem to be on the right wavelength at all this morning so found this quite hard, though in retrospect almost everything seems reasonably straightforward, with the exception of one clue that … Read more >>

Azed 2740 – ‘Christmas Playfair’

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Several Azed bloggers, myself included, have commented that the appearance of a Playfair puzzle is a scary prospect, as it involved both cold-solving the italicised clues, and deducing the codeword from the answers and the crossing letters.

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Guardian 29,582 – Yank

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A few American terms and references in this one, as befits the setter’s pseudonym, but nothing too outrageous. I enjoyed this, though there’s one parsing I’m not sure of. Thanks to Yank.   … Read more >>

Azed 2740 – no blog yet

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The Azed Christmas puzzle has a stated closing date of 29th December. This is unusual in two ways: first by being a Sunday, and secondly by not giving an extra week, as is … Read more >>

Guardian 29,575 – Arachne

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A Boxing Day treat to see a puzzle from Arachne – a fairly gentle one, to suit anyone who may have overindulged yesterday, but beautifully constructed as ever. Thanks to Arachne, and Merry … Read more >>

Guardian 29,569 – Imogen

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I found this quite slow going: in retrospect most of the clueing is reasonably straightforward, though with quite a few double definitions. Thanks to Imogen.   Across 1 STIGMATISATION Getting denounced, recollecting satanism? … Read more >>

Guardian 29,562 – Anto

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Regular readers will know I’m not generally a big Anto fan, but I enjoyed this one. A bit of a science-y feel to it, though perhaps not enough to constitute a full theme. … Read more >>

Guardian 29,555 – Vulcan

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In contrast to Friday’s puzzle from his alter ago Imogen, Vulcan gives us the traditional “gentle start to the week”, with a generous helping of cryptic definitions. Thanks to Vulcan.   Across 1 … Read more >>