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 17,636 by BOBCAT

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Maybe I have just had a long day, but I found this puzzle very challenging to complete, especially the top half. I think that a majority of the clues were: guess first, parse later, which is fine, unless it is my turn to write up the blog.

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Azed No. 2,688: ‘A Cool Yomp’ – Christmas Competition Puzzle

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NOTE:  This blog was previously posted on December 31, 2023, and was temporarily withdrawn in light of the announcement of a corrected closing date for the competition.

I viewed with some dread the fact that I had drawn the Christmas Eve Azed slot, having failed in years past to complete the special holiday puzzles (the one about “presents around the tree” being an especially unpleasant memory.) And as one who finds Spoonerisms nearly always overwrought and almost never even remotely witty, the prospect of an entire puzzle constructed with Spoonerisms put a wet blanket on my Christmas cheer. And as one who frequently struggles with purported “homophones” based upon Received Pronunciation, I knew that I was in for a mindbender, at best, and outright failure, at worst. Setting those grinchy cavils aside, I must say, I think that I have actually completed this crossword correctly. It took me several sittings, but ultimately, I found the challenge enjoyable. Saying the words and their possible phonemic inversions out loud definitely helped with solving.

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Financial Times 17,618 by BOBCAT

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Over the holiday period I have been overwhelmed trying to keep up with solving the blowout of special, extra, and jumbo crosswords, and here today we have a new Bobcat puzzle with some very inventive twists and turns . . .

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