John

Born 1946. Since retiring (maths teacher) have spent an increasing amount of time on crosswords, something that was impossible before – am not in the sub-ten minutes league and probably never will be. Do The Times every day (more often than not in over half an hour), also an assortment of other puzzles. Have been doing Azed monthly for some years and entering his clue-setting competitions, occasionally with some success (I even won once, have had 36 VHCs and 138 HCs — yes, I keep a record, sad isn't it) but not enough for my liking. I've set a few crosswords: five in Oxford Today, a few on Derek Harrison's website, and five in The Independent, under the name Vernon. Also play a lot of chess and golf, although as I age I'm getting weaker at both.

AZED 2,352

Sun July 16, 2017 at 12:05 am by John

In a few cases (14ac, 19dn, 25dn, 27dn) Azed has produced clues of the highest quality, clues that would I’m sure be quoted in his own clue-setting competitions, but many of the rest, as is always the case with Azed, are, although perfectly sound and quite pleasant, very simple in their construction and the answers are only difficult to find because they require knowledge of words that are way beyond the ken of the solver on the Clapham omnibus. Which is as it should be. He is not intended to be solved on the C. o.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9,592 by Vigo

Tue July 11, 2017 at 10:52 amTue July 11, 2017 at 9:54 am by John

Vigo has always been marginally difficult: not horribly so, but significantly. This crossword I found almost as easy as anything the Independent ever produces, and amazingly so for a Tuesday, which is usually one of the harder days. Not that that is a bad thing: it’s a positive on blogging day, and in any case the crossword itself was a good one: simple clues, but all sound and enjoyable. My only carp is with the use (twice, I think) of ‘with’ as a link-word, something that I find almost impossible to justify on logical grounds, although I have seen people who know rather more about these things than I do making a case for it.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9,587 by Silvanus

Wed July 5, 2017 at 9:59 am by John

A pleasant gentle crossword from Silvanus today. I thought one or two of the surfaces (10ac, 15ac, …) were perhaps a little underwhelming, but on the other hand some (11ac, 1dn, …) were very good.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9582/Serpent

Thu June 29, 2017 at 10:54 amThu June 29, 2017 at 10:22 am by John

Sorry about the lateness of this post. Also its primitiveness: the nice software that I generally use was for some reason unavailable this morning and I did it the old laborious way, writing … Read more >>

Independent 9,577 by Phi

Fri June 23, 2017 at 9:07 am by John

When is Phi anything other than sound and enjoyable? I can never see his devilish Ninas, so perhaps these are less than enjoyable, for me. But not for all.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9,568 by Serpent

Tue June 13, 2017 at 9:14 am by John

Poor old Serpent has got me again, not long after his last appearance. But from my point of view it’s a pleasure: very much on the tricky side but quite fair and a whole lot of very satisfactory clues.

Independent 9,563 by Hypnos

Wed June 7, 2017 at 9:27 am by John

Hypnos and I haven’t met for ages and this pleasant simple crossword shows that he hasn’t lost anything. Nothing much to say really: just a whole lot of sound and very satisfactory clues. The Wednesday standard set by Dac is being maintained.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

AZED 2,346

Sun June 4, 2017 at 4:30 pmSun June 4, 2017 at 12:05 am by John

A nice comparatively easy Azed today — the last one I did was his P.D. at the start of May, and that took ages. This one didn’t, although it was less fun. But very enjoyable, though. 8dn?

As always I haven’t bothered to explain the difficult words.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9,558 by Serpent

Thu June 1, 2017 at 10:04 pmThu June 1, 2017 at 9:33 am by John

An excellent crossword from Serpent today. It was tough — for me, at any rate — but well worth struggling with, for there were some very good clues and the whole thing hung together nicely. I particularly enjoyed 2dn.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9,553 by Phi

Fri May 26, 2017 at 9:06 pmFri May 26, 2017 at 9:11 am by John

The usual experience with Phi: clues whose answer is not always obvious, yet after solving one wonders where the problem lay. There are no clues here where I am asking for help in the parsing (which is not to say that all will be perfectly correct. It seldom is).

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9,544 by Knut

Tue May 16, 2017 at 9:39 pmTue May 16, 2017 at 9:42 am by John

What we expect from Knut nowadays: a very pleasant solve and nothing very controversial I think.

Independent 9,539 by Eccles

Thu May 11, 2017 at 11:14 amWed May 10, 2017 at 9:37 am by John

An excellent puzzle from Eccles with soundness (I think) coupled with very pleasing surfaces. I found this very hard to begin with — none of the Acrosses fell at first sight — and then there were plenty of accessible Downs. Finally I stopped, having spent ages and failed on 22ac and 25ac. One of them is a (to me) dreaded cryptic definition, so there weren’t the usual two ways to the answer and I couldn’t see the required one; the other one (25ac) is still a bit of a mystery; no doubt someone will explain it better than I can.

Independent 9,534 by Maize

Fri May 5, 2017 at 12:10 pmThu May 4, 2017 at 9:45 am by John

By chance poor old Maize has got me again. I was very enthusiastic about his/her previous offering; this one is less obviously outstanding, simply very good. There are a whole lot of excellent sound clues.

Independent 9,529 by Phi

Fri April 28, 2017 at 9:26 pmFri April 28, 2017 at 9:42 am by John

The usual utterly sound and enjoyable crossword from Phi. You can tell how good it is because (although on the easy side for Phi) it presents its fair share of problems while solving, but all the constructions turn out to be very straightforward.

AZED 2,340

Mon April 24, 2017 at 12:27 pmSun April 23, 2017 at 12:05 am by John

A typical Azed. Good clues and the necessity for Chambers to verify all the unusual words.

The Observer only seems to have made one mistake this week, at 26dn.