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!

Independent 8731 / Dac

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A fairly standard puzzle from Dac today with his usual elegant clue writing.       There were a significant number of entries with consecutive double letters.  I counted ten in all, six … Read more >>

Azed 2205

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We had a plain competition Azed this week where one of the clues was a simple definition that yielded an entry to be clued as part of the competition       Bloggers over the … Read more >>

Independent 8688 / Radian

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Tuesday Independent puzzles are often a bit quirky.  Today’s puzzle from Radian fills the Tuesday role admirably       This puzzle was based on the difference between U and Non-U English words. … Read more >>