John's avatarJohn

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 8284/Phi

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It isn’t giving anything away to the casual reader of this blog to say that all the across clues are of two words. I found it rather hard to get started on this, … Read more >>

Independent 8265/Anax

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As we always expect nowadays, a thoroughly good workout from Anax that I thought was, for him, on the marginally easy side. The clues are tight and efficient and some of them quite … Read more >>

Independent 8260/Phi

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The usual excellent crossword from Phi.  I took a bit longer than usual to get started, but once afloat all was well and the typically sound clueing didn’t hold me back too much. … Read more >>

Independent 8251/Raich

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A pleasant solve from Raich. As always one or two of the clues were very simple, which is no bad thing, but a few were a little tricky. I think I have it all explained but … Read more >>

Independent 8246/Dac

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As happens on many Wednesdays, we have a neat and perfectly-formed object. You wouldn’t think that such excellent surfaces were possible from the simple material used. Across 1 HO AXER 4 ROASTING — … Read more >>

Independent 8236/Phi

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The usual good crossword from Phi that I found a bit harder than usual. I’m still quite lost on 25ac and would be grateful for some help here: it will surely be forthcoming … Read more >>

Azed 2125

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As always a thoroughly satisfactory crossword from Azed. Quite apart from the quality of the clues, I am always impressed with his grids. More often than not, it seems, he has answers straddling … Read more >>

Independent 8222/Dac

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Sorry this is a bit late, at any rate later than it would have been. The online crossword when I switched on around 9.00 was yesterday’s Tees, so I had to go out … Read more >>

Independent 8217/Eimi

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There I was when I found a word repeated in the answers thinking that Eimi had been a bit repetitive, and quite failing to realise that today has a special meaning (although, to … Read more >>