bridgesong

Born in 1947, I remember as a child tackling the Skeleton in my father’s Sunday Express before moving on to The Times at school with a classmate. For 20 years or so after leaving school I had no time for crosswords but started again in the 1980s, teaching myself to do Azed (with help from Don Manley’s Crossword Manual). Now retired after a career as a lawyer which culminated in appointment as a District Judge, I do the Guardian every Saturday, usually with my friend and neighbour Timon (who introduced me to fifteensquared). I also enter the Azed monthly competitions but have never done better than the very occasional VHC. More recently I have become a subscriber to the Magpie magazine and submit entries monthly, without yet winning a pen. My pseudonym comes from two of my other leisure interests, bridge and singing.

Azed 1953

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“Words may be false and full of art; sighs are the natural language of the heart”, by Thomas Shadwell is the quotation referred to here. The second part is obtained by the letters … Read more >>

Azed 1932

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A difficult enough puzzle anyway, made more so by the fact that the clues for 23 and 24 down were transposed in the version printed in The Observer (and of course in the … Read more >>

Azed 1906: Morse coda

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Apologies for the late publication of this blog. I’m a last minute substitute and pressure of work prevented me from filing it yesterday as I had intended. The puzzle itself was an elegant … Read more >>

Azed 1902: grin and snore

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A straightforward puzzle this week, with a fair proportion of unfamiliar words.  Nevertheless, it’s worth making the point that Azed puzzles can in fact be easier to solve than a daily cryptic, as … Read more >>

Azed 1886

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Solving time : about a day (but it was my birthday, so I was distracted).  Loads of unfamiliar words this week, and some excellent surface readings (e.g. 19 across).  I found the south-west … Read more >>