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 17,826 by NEO

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After breezing through half this puzzle, I needed to engage with a bit more attention to work out the other half, with Neo offering several truly ingenious clues, with quite a few witty surfaces.

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Financial Times 17,807 by AARDVARK

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Just when I think I am really getting the hang of these puzzles, I run headlong into a workout like today’s offering from Aardvark, which required quite a bit of GK and lateral thinking before I finally struggled through the final clue.

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