Cineraria

Born in 1963, I began with crosswords as a little boy by “helping” my grandfather with the puzzle in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. I have done American-style crosswords since I was a teenager, and I enjoy many other types of word puzzles, including cryptograms and acrostics. I cannot remember when I discovered cryptic crosswords. I used to do the Guardian puzzle every day, but being a lawyer by profession does not leave me a lot of time to indulge my deliberate yet desultory solving method. I have been doing the Guardian Prize every Friday and the Azed every Saturday since 2020, and the Genius every month since 2018 (typically succeeding, but admittedly with some DNFs). I was even gratified to be a Genius winner a few years ago. I have learned an awful lot from studying the post-mortems on fifteensquared. As for other interests, I have a large collection of origami books, and I like folding the most complicated models I can find.

Financial Times 18,449 by MOO

Tue August 11, 2026 at 2:05 pmTue August 11, 2026 at 3:20 am by Cineraria

Overall, the clues were very good, but I found this entry from Moo quite a struggle, for some reason.

Financial Times 18,443 by SLORMGORM

Tue August 4, 2026 at 2:13 am by Cineraria

Slormgorm has some of his usual panache on display in today’s puzzle.

Guardian Prize Crossword No 30,068 by Paul

Sat August 1, 2026 at 12:01 am by Cineraria

Paul is in fine form on rather a tough solve, I thought.

I hope that I have managed to explain everything adequately.

Financial Times 18,437 by JASON

Tue July 28, 2026 at 1:49 pmTue July 28, 2026 at 2:05 am by Cineraria

A nice variety of clues from Jason today

Financial Times 18,431 by GOZO

Tue July 21, 2026 at 2:40 am by Cineraria

I am filling in for scchua today. Fortunately, the assignment from Gozo was not too taxing.

Financial Times 18,425 by MOO

Tue July 14, 2026 at 1:56 am by Cineraria

A sturdy set of clues from Moo . . .

Azed No. 2,781

Sun July 12, 2026 at 12:00 am by Cineraria

It is starting to feel like a privilege to have an Azed land on my rotation.

Financial Times 18,419 by BOBCAT

Tue July 7, 2026 at 7:05 amTue July 7, 2026 at 3:15 am by Cineraria

I usually find Bobcat clever but accessible, but for some reason, I found myself struggling from start to finish on this one. The clues were fairly constructed, so I am not sure what the disconnect was.

Financial Times 18,413 by SLORMGORM

Tue June 30, 2026 at 1:23 pmTue June 30, 2026 at 3:36 am by Cineraria

A fine puzzle from Slormgorm, with long solutions crossing in the middle to lock everything into place.

Financial Times 18,401 by PETO

Tue June 16, 2026 at 2:25 am by Cineraria

Peto often lands on my blogging rotation, so I would imagine that by now I would not find these puzzles quite so tough to parse out as I did this one . . .