duncanshiell's avatarduncanshiell

Born in 1948. I retired from full-time work in May 2007, after 37 years with Ordnance Survey and associated bodies and now have time to devote to crosswords, something not available for many years. Product of 17 years in the Scottish education system, but lived overseas or in southern England for virtually all of the time thereafter. I moved back to Scotland in 2010. Regular road runner and recently returned to orienteering and golf after a 35 year gap. Developed interested in cryptic crosswords in the mid 1960s (Scotsman, Sunday Express skeleton), but working overseas and then raising a family, meant dropping out of crossword solving for about 30 years. Now a regular solver of Times, Guardian, Independent, Inquisitor, Listener and Magpie crosswords. Reasonably regular finisher of the first four. Started blogging in late 2007. Any solving ability far outweighs any clueing ability. Krypton Factor contestant 1983; eliminated in the first round, but the obstacle course finish made good television!

Azed 2450

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A carte blanche to blog this week.       I always enjoy cartes blanches as I like the challenge of cold solving a few clues.  We were told that the grid was … Read more >>

Azed 2444

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A standard plain crossword. this week.       I thought this was more difficult than many plain puzzles.  Of course it didn’t help by putting in CHIPMUNK originally at 1 across, rather … Read more >>

Genius 189 /Soup

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March’s Genius challenge is provided by Soup. I note that Soup has been the December Genius compiler in 2016, 2017 and 2018 but I’ve never solved any of his puzzles myself, so I … Read more >>