Cineraria's avatarCineraria

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 18,510 by SLORMGORM

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I suppose every setter has his or her idiosyncrasies, but I think that it is fair to say that Slormgorm’s style poses a unique challenge. Today’s puzzle is a fine example, with a number of clues requiring a third or fourth read-through before any sort of solution registered with me.

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Gemelo No. 49

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Another well-crafted puzzle from Gemelo. I managed only a few solutions on my first pass, and I really felt stymied, but then one by one the clues suddenly seemed almost obvious.

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Financial Times 18,461 by SLORMGORM

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This was fun. Slormgorm frequently coincides with my blogging slot, and every time I start off thinking that the familiarity developed from past blogs will help in solving each new puzzle. Wrong again, since this puzzle provided its own twists and turns.

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