Never knowingly undersolved
John Klingsor seems to be lumbered with me rather often nowadays. Not that this worries me. I’d be happy to blog his puzzles every time (apart from the odd holiday with some of the other setters) because he’s one of the best around. There is always the right level of difficulty for me: not too easy, but the surfaces are nice and everything is clear and sound; one can eventually solve his most intractable clues. I think.
Definitions underlined.
Everything was going fine: the usual experience with Phi, rather slow to get started then, when once afloat, making steady progress so that it all seemed easy enough. And then I came up against 5dn. Having thought for a good while I abandoned myself to every variety of aids, still without success. After about half an hour I left it and returned about three hours later, when the answer was obvious. How often this happens. Of course ‘forbidding’ wasn’t a rather dodgy indicator of the omission of something; all perfectly sound.
This crossword from Hob was in the Nimrod league so far as difficulty is concerned. It took me absolutely ages, and even now I’m not sure about the parsing of one or two of the answers. Who knows just why, since when I can understand the answer it seems straightforward enough; perhaps it’s because the definition is often cunningly disguised and when you do have an idea what it is the number of options is so great that you aren’t exactly led by the hand towards the right one.
Definitions underlined.
No Dac today I’m afraid, even though it isn’t the last Wednesday of the month. Christmas I suppose. But this is perfectly serviceable and fills the gap very satisfactorily. It seems that most of the parsings are straightforward and can be given in one short expression, and there doesn’t seem to me to be anything controversial. Some slightly unusual anagram indicators, perhaps.
Definitions underlined.
Klingsor always produces good crosswords and this is no exception. A whole lot of well-crafted clues and a difficulty level set (unwittingly perhaps) just high enough but not impossibly high.
I don’t think Klingsor does themes. Perhaps he does, and I’ll look silly for missing something obvious.
Definitions underlined.
To finish this crossword I used aids. Usually when I do so I regret it afterwards, feeling that the answer really should have been clear, but in this case there was no self-reproach since the words were so unusual that despite some help from the wordplay they would probably still be empty spaces. None of the answers at 4ac, 12ac, 4dn, 6dn or 7dn are in Chambers Crossword Dictionary (2006) and only 4dn and 7dn are in Bradford’s (2006). So far as I can see, anyway.
Being of a pedantic turn, I was struck by several little things that weren’t quite right here: 19dn is given as (6) when it is (7); 22dn is given as 23dn; whoever typed out … Read more >>
All very nice. Good clues and nothing that seems to me to be all that much of a problem (although see below for my discomfort over 8ac and 26ac). I enjoyed this and although it wasn’t perfectly simple — is it ever perfectly simple on a Tuesday? — everything was easily enough explained after the event.
Quixote’s monthly appearance as a sub for Dac and as usual not lowering the standard at all; everything elegantly and efficiently clued. I sped through this but spent twenty minutes on 12/14 before giving up. It’s a phrase I had never heard and I felt a bit guilty not knowing it as it’s probably quite well-known.
So, for me at any rate, the unusual word or phrase was there, a trademark of Quixote’s puzzles.
A tour de force from Morph today: many of the clues have clever wordplay and cunningly-disguised definitions. I found it all on the hard side, but absolutely worth it. And Morph’s clues have become pleasantly pithy, something that at one time it was not always possible to say.
This was I thought one of Phi’s harder crosswords. The simplicity of the parsing in many cases doesn’t reflect the ease of solving.
But as always and as we have come to expect he has set a fair challenge full of good clues.
All very pleasing from Alchemi today. Some of the clues were nice and there seem to be no problems with any of them.
Today sees the apparently now-regular appearance of Quixote on the last Wednesday of the month. As always, an enjoyable solve with no particular problems, although I didn’t find this so easy as I do the usual Wednesday setter. The obligatory (?) couple of unusual words are here, although they are clued, as indeed should be the case in these circumstances, simply.
Definitions underlined.
This is something Azed only occasionally does, to have one of his specials on a non-clue-setting-competition day. I don’t know how many solvers there are who do the n-c-s-c puzzles but not the c-s-c ones, … Read more >>
Klingsor is probably my favourite setter, so when I saw that I was blogging one of his I knew that it would be difficult but good and fair.
In fact it wasn’t all that difficult. Not easy, but so far as I can see everything makes sense straightforwardly enough.