Thursday, and something difficult was to be expected. But most of this went in easily enough, although in the end I did take a bit longer than usual over this very pleasant crossword from Knut.
John
Independent 9673 / Phi
Some computer problems today, which caused me to do the blog in the old way. Not the usual nice layout with bells and whistles, but you should be able to see what’s going … Read more >>
Independent 9,664 by Crosophile
An enjoyable crossword from Crosophile today, with no very major pieces of controversy so far as I can see. All right, there are a couple of clues that I can’t quite explain properly but that’s probably just me.
Definitions in maroon, underlined.
Independent 9,659 by Dac
Problems today with the fifteensquared site, which was down earlier, so I’m afraid this is a little late. However, you probably won’t be affected because you couldn’t get into it either.
As always Dac has given us an utterly pleasant puzzle. No great problems with it I think — even the slightly doubtful one at 3dn, where my suspicion is that Homer, or the two Homers, nodded, was really perfectly obvious. But then quite possibly they didn’t nod at all and I have missed something.
Definitions in maroon, underlined.
Independent 9,654 by Punk
This took me a long time because these crosswords with many references to a single clue can be hard to get started on if you can’t see, as I couldn’t immediately, the gateway clue. They effectively rule out many of the clues, to begin with anyway. But eventually I got going and it was a nice crossword.
Independent 9,649 by Phi
The usual utterly sound and satisfactory crossword from Phi. As always, while doing it I found some of the clues a bit tricky, yet afterwards the reason for this was not obvious.
Definitions in maroon, underlined.
Independent 9,640 by Morph
One of Morph’s occasional and very welcome contributions, not that it was easy. It took me at any rate a long time.
The only — very mild — criticism is that ER appears twice, in 10ac as ‘royal’, and in 8dn as ‘ruler’.
Definitions in maroon, underlined.
Independent 9,635 by Dac
One of Dac’s typically smoothly-constructed crosswords. The usual good clues and nothing to take any sort of exception to. I found most of this quite easy and then came to a halt on the quartet of 1ac, 9ac, 1dn. 3dn, failing to see the equivalence of a card game to cards, expecting the church bell’s noise to be a ring, thinking the female would be either f or a girl’s name, and expecting a bit of dope to be d.
Definitions in maroon, underlined.
AZED 2,358
I always err in these Azed blogs on the side of giving rather too little information: anyone who is going to look at them will have a copy of Chambers to hand and will be able to understand the incredibly unusual words both in the answers and in the clues. the actual parsing is usually fairly simple. Sometimes I forget the definition in the time between doing the puzzle and doing the blog, but once one has given the wordplay the definition is usually obvious.
But what about those people who are new to Azed solving and want to have the clues properly explained? Well to them I say get a copy of Chambers. And if the price puts you off, the version for the smartphone is a fraction of the price and so far as I can see contains basically the whole of the new edition.
Independent 9,630 by Crosophile
This pleasant crossword from Crosophile took me slightly longer than usual. No good reason for this though, since it all seems to be pretty sound now the challenge is over.
Definitions in maroon, underlined.
Independent 9,625 by Phi
This seemed to be a much harder Phi than usual. Once done it all seemed simple enough, as witness the simple parsing of almost all the answers. But in many cases the ‘synonyms’ that we had to find in the wordplay were not at all obvious. All perfectly fair, though.
The difficulty also was exacerbated by the large number of clues that required some sort of subtraction; at a quick count I found seven of them.
Independent 9,616 by Scorpion
This took me ages, although I have no real excuse. Everything was sound so far as I could see; it was simply very hard. It seems that with Scorpion’s crosswords much of the difficulty lies in the fact that there are so many possibilities at each stage.
Definitions underlined and in maroon.
Independent 9,611 by Eccles
Apart from my complete blank with 18dn, and one or two very slight misgivings (27ac, 28ac, 1dn) the clues here are very pleasant and this is one of Eccles’s (you may notice Eccles’s not Eccles) typical good productions. The clues at 9ac and 6dn are very nice.
Definitions underlined and in maroon.
Independent 9,606 by Hob
That was hard work. Quite apart from the fact that many of the clues referred to a not particularly easy answer and so there was an extra slowness at the start, it was difficult. Or so I thought at the time.
But it was good.
Definitions underlined and in maroon.
Independent 9,601 by Phi
When is a crossword by Phi anything other than quietly sound? All the clues here admit of quite simple explanations although of course they’re not always all that easy to solve in the first place.
Definitions underlined and in maroon.