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.

Independent 9,443 by Dac

Wed January 18, 2017 at 10:07 am by John

A slightly strange crossword, in that it was rather harder than a normal Dac to begin with and for some time very little was filled in, but by the end it was just the same as ever — not too demanding at all but right up to the usual standard of smoothness and elegance.

A quick glance at the clues shows that more often than not ‘in’ is a link-word rather than a sign of inclusion’. Perhaps this was what initially held me up.

I wasn’t all that happy with 1dn and may be missing something.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9,438 by Poins

Thu January 12, 2017 at 10:09 am by John

Poins today. This didn’t seem quite like usual Thursday fare, since Thursdays tend to be rather difficult, for me at any rate, and although there are several places here where I don’t fully understand what’s going on, it did seem to be rather easier than usual.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9,433 by Phi

Fri January 6, 2017 at 10:09 am by John

A very unusual grid in that there are only 22 answers, the fewest I’ve ever seen in a daily cryptic. I’m running a bit late today and wondered why I seem to have caught up: obvious why, with so little for me to do.

Enjoyable and utterly satisfactory as always. So many answers that initially gave difficulty proved to be very simple in hindsight.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9,419 by Dac

Wed December 21, 2016 at 9:32 am by John

What more is there to say about Dac? The surfaces and the accuracy of construction are right up to their usual standards.

AZED 2,323

Sun December 18, 2016 at 12:05 am by John

It gets worse. It’s very likely no fault of Azed’s, more The Observer being incompetent, but there are lots of mistakes here. There is a general cock-up (which is of no real concern to the solver) which is a repeat in reverse of last week: last week they printed the ‘three prizes’ version of the preamble and said nothing about any asterisked clue or where to send it; this week they printed what they should have printed last week when it isn’t a competition clue-setting week.

But more serious is the large number of little mistakes, so many that in some places one can’t be quite sure what is going on. 26ac is given as 24ac. Is 32ac of five letters or six? 18dn doesn’t have the number 18 in the right place in the grid (it is, meaninglessly, in the square above where it should be). 28dn seems to be of five letters although it is given as (4). There should be a line between the D of PARDAL and the N of AVANTI.

I downloaded the crossword from the website on Sunday morning and one would have hoped that by now things would have been corrected. I looked again just now (late on Sunday) but nothing has been done. I didn’t see the paper copy and wonder if that one contained the same mistakes. My bet is that it does and I base this on the obvious disdain of the staff at The Observer for a crossword that continues a tradition of many years. Time they started to treat its crossword with a bit of respect.

Still, I got there, more or less, and it was the usual enjoyable experience. Is it me or are the words becoming more and more obscure? At least the clues are structurally pretty straightforward.

Independent 9,414 by Crosophile

Fri December 16, 2016 at 10:21 pmThu December 15, 2016 at 10:12 am by John

An enjoyable crossword from Crosophile today: not too difficult for a Thursday, it seemed to me.

Independent 9,409 by Phi

Fri December 9, 2016 at 9:28 pmFri December 9, 2016 at 9:57 am by John

Although this was no easier than Phi usually is, indeed rather tricky in places, most of these answers can be explained in one short parsing. So really quite simple despite appearances — to use what is rapidly becoming a cliché if it hasn’t done so already, the mark of a good setter.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9,400 by Morph

Wed November 30, 2016 at 12:50 pmTue November 29, 2016 at 9:21 am by John

It only occasionally I think falls to me to blog a crossword by Morph, but it is always enjoyable: by no means a write-in, but all his crosswords seem to contain one or two remarkably nice clues. A couple of clues go some way towards defeating me in their parsings, but no doubt all will be made clear.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9,395 by Dac

Mon November 28, 2016 at 12:24 pmWed November 23, 2016 at 9:30 am by John

What more is there to say about Dac? This is the usual consummate performance from the master, albeit at the easy end of the scale and containing nothing to hold people up for long. Even the citrus fruit at 24ac can be taken on trust. And thank goodness I didn’t need to know anything about Thiepval in 6dn.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9,390 by Nestor

Thu November 17, 2016 at 10:14 am by John

Nestor is often difficult, and this was no exception. But as it should be — one looks back when parsing a clue and says “well that really wasn’t too hard”. There are some quite outstanding clues here and the fact that they took me a long time to solve didn’t detract from the enjoyment.

Independent 9,385 by Phi

Fri November 11, 2016 at 10:16 am by John

Phi’s typically good sound Friday offering. I found this on the hard side for him, although progress was steady enough and there were no long pauses while I failed to see the way forward.

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

AZED 2,317

Sun November 6, 2016 at 12:06 am by John

There are two typos in this crossword: Edinburgh is spelled Edinburg at 11ac, and 34ac is numbered as 24ac. Obvious mistakes of course, not likely to detain anyone, but when the standard of proof-reading falls like this, if you can’t at first solve a clue then you begin to wonder if there is a typo in it. Not something one normally sees in Azed’s crosswords — how he generally maintains such high standards of accuracy without so far as I know having any sort of crossword editor to pick up on things is impressive.

(I wrote this before discovering that there is a third typo: The first word of the clue for 4dn is meant to be Chain not Cain. And here at last we have a mistake which does actually cause a waste of time (in my case, because I was doing the blog, considerable).)

The usual: sound clueing, impossibly difficult words whose very existence keeps surprising me, one or two excellent clues, and as so often one (4dn) whose explanation is beyond me (at least it was, until the typo was pointed out).

Definitions underlined and in maroon.

Independent 9,376 by Raich

Wed November 2, 2016 at 11:14 pmTue November 1, 2016 at 9:31 am by John

This crossword from Raich is to the usual high standard that we have come to expect from him. All the clues seem to me to be neat and uncontroversial with good surfaces, and the theme is something you don’t really need to know in order to solve the crossword, which is as it should be.

Raich always seems to appear on Tuesdays, which I find a little hard to understand. I wouldn’t say this was a doddle, but it was much easier fare than the sort of stuff we often get on a Tuesday, a day which sometimes competes with Thursday for the title of ‘most difficult day’.

Independent 9,371 by Dac

Wed October 26, 2016 at 9:55 am by John

For some reason I found this unusually hard for a Dac, but the trademark qualities are still all there — just as good as ever. Perhaps it was because there seemed to be slightly fewer clues than normal involving anagrams. I don’t know.

Definitions underlined.

Independent 9,366 by Wiglaf

Thu October 20, 2016 at 10:42 am by John

This is Wiglaf’s fifth crossword in the Independent, although the first one that I have blogged. We seem to have plenty of newish names nowadays, although you wouldn’t know that they were newish because their crosswords are pretty good; as you’d expect of course, as they wouldn’t have got past Eimi if they weren’t.

I found this to be a bit hard in places, but quite sound and any failings were my own. Perhaps a bit clunky in places, such as 5dn, but this is made up for by some very nice clues.

Definitions in italics.