Never knowingly undersolved
John As always, a fine crossword from Punk. There are possible quibbles with 13ac and 15ac/1dn, and some of the answers have marginally less than 50% checking, but there is a nice theme that may excuse this.
These crosswords that have lots of clues referring to other ones are always difficult to start on, since one’s first read through only allows possible solving of some of the clues, and this was no exception.
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What we have come to expect from Eccles and just right for a Wednesday: good, accessible, sound. Plenty of nice clues.
My apologies for the lateness, which is even worse than usual (The Guardian and the FT are always before me. Bet they are today [actually the FT wasn’t]). When I switched off yesterday there were various updates, and these had to be fiddled with by the computer before it booted up. And then it didn’t seem to want to start Windows. But eventually it did thank goodness.
Serpent has been around for a year or two now, but I don’t think I have had the pleasure before. It seems that most people have found him on the hard side, but it looks as if I’ve had a fairly gentle introduction to him.
More &lits or near-&lits than I remember in a daily crossword. Clever of Serpent to get so many in.
This must be the smallest 15×15 crossword ever published in a national daily, having only 20 clues. The Times Quick Cryptic, which is 13×13, seldom has so few clues, but really this is one of the few 13×13 cryptics of 20 clues, with some answers lengthened. Four long acrosses and four long downs are the reason for the brevity. Phi has managed to make it all look sensible enough, though, and it must have been quite difficult to fit those long answers in.
As usual all very pleasant, as we have come to expect from Phi.
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So far as I can see Maize has appeared twice before. You wouldn’t know that he was fairly new, though, since this is a quite outstanding puzzle. On the hard side but more often than not once the answer became clear I was inwardly congratulating Maize rather than grumbling. There are some marvellous clues and I hope we see plenty more of this setter.
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An enjoyable gentle workout from Eccles today. Apart from my moans about the way that language is evolving — and some would say just live with it — there are a whole lot of pleasant simply-constructed clues here.
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The usual good-quality Azed competition puzzle: everything seems to be soundly clued.
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In the preamble it says ‘NB Competition clues submitted should begin with an appropriate letter so as to complete a hidden message‘. I spent ages trying to find this hidden message.
As I said once when posting a remark about a Mudd puzzle in the FT, we don’t appreciate this setter enough. This puzzle contains a whole lot of utterly good, straightforward clues with sensible surfaces and no straining involved. I suppose that if you’re being picky there are rather a lot of full or almost full anagrams, but they’re all clued quite naturally.
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As always from Phi a crossword that doesn’t initially fall particularly easily but eventually does, and one looks back at the solutions and says how simple, how on earth did I miss that. Which is of course as it should be.
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A good challenge from Knut today, as is appropriate on a Tuesday. Some nice clues. I don’t seem to have blogged one of Knut’s before, but would be happy to do more.
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The usual thing: such straightforward clear clues that there are no problems with any of this. But just as good as ever and all perfectly constructed. How Dac goes on with word after word producing transparent and utterly sound clues is amazing. The word “clunky” is less appropriate with him than with anyone.
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This was hard work. No real complaints though, since it was all soundly clued so far as I could see, and some of the clues are very good. I particularly liked 7dn, 1ac and 23ac. And 5dn too, despite its reminder of that blemish on a game that is so much loved.
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Phi is rather on the hard side today, I think, but still up to the usual high standard. Every clue could easily be explained afterwards, which is as it should be.
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The usual Azed. All pretty sound so far as I can see. You really need to have Chambers by your side; it would be an endless task for me to explain everything everywhere.
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Very good stuff from Radian, although I found it hard to finish this off. There were some words that I didn’t know.
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