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 8045/Koroi

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Yet another new setter in the Indy apparently. When I saw that it wasn’t the usual Phi, who is no doubt going to appear tomorrow, I had slight fears that it might be … Read more >>

Independent 8036/Anax

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As usual a nice crossword from Anax, with some excellent clues and what one expects in the way of original ideas for wordplay. The fact that four of the answers have less than … Read more >>

Independent 8031/Dac

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As usual from Dac, an impressive contribution. Several of these clues have an &lit. quality (and quality is the word), so many in fact that while solving one tends to say “I can’t see … Read more >>

Independent 8021/Phi

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One of those themed crosswords that takes a long time to start if you don’t immediately see the gateway clue (as I have discovered it’s called; in this case 5dn). Then much of … Read more >>

Azed 2089

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A rare special on a non-competition day, which was a very pleasant exercise — I don’t remember seeing this type of crossword before and I found solving tricky, not for all the usual … Read more >>

Independent 8012/Tees

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An excellent workout from Tees today. The theme is the long clue 3/22/9/20, and the unchecked letters on the left-hand and right-hand sides of the grid, which I saw fairly early in the … Read more >>

Independent 7988/Punk

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The last time we had a Punk he had me as a blogger and I was less than complimentary about his puzzle — but it was pointed out that I shouldn’t have been. … Read more >>

Azed 2083

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The usual Azed solve: excellent sound clueing and a large number of words that you never knew existed. Across 1 BEWITCH — the competition clue-word 7 ASTI{r} 10 ATHAPASCAN — (Apach{e} Satan)* although … Read more >>