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 surely never will be. Do The Times every day (more often than not in over half an hour), also an assortment of other puzzles. Did Azed monthly for some years and entered his clue-setting competitions, occasionally with some success (I even won once, had 38 VHCs and 140 HCs — yes, I kept 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 7522/Dac

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The usual excellence from Dac today. Such smooth surfaces, and he clues everything so seamlessly and neatly. A couple I don’t understand, but they will no doubt be explained. Across 1 VOCALISTS — (cov{e})rev. … Read more >>

Independent 7518/Phi

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The usual excellent crossword from Dac (Phi actually. I’m so used to making statements like this that when it’s 2.30 a.m. and both setters have three letters in their names one slips. But … Read more >>

Azed 2006 — ‘Spoonerisms’

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Azed’s last competition puzzle was (of course, 2000) a special and I’d been expecting a little run of plains, but his specials, although they always take a bit longer than usual, are well … Read more >>

Independent 7509/Raich

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A pleasant — pretty easy even I thought — crossword where the four books appear three times as answers (so for a while I was puzzled by the repeated ‘one of four here’) … Read more >>

Independent 7504/Dac

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As usual a beautifully elegant construction from Dac. All the clues lead to their solutions with crystalline ease, and they can nearly all be explained in simple logical ways without resort to references, … Read more >>

Independent 7499/Klingsor

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Klingsor is a fairly recent addition to The Independent team and I know I’ve done his crosswords before, but I couldn’t remember what they were like and didn’t know what to expect. This … Read more >>

Independent 7485/Scorpion

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I always fear crosswords by Scorpion, expecting them to be impossibly hard. However, this one was perfectly all right, several nice clues, one I didn’t and still don’t understand, but that’s only usual. To … Read more >>

Independent 7480/Dac

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One runs out of words of praise for Dac’s crosswords: as always this is full of smooth clues with elegant surfaces.  Often they need no explanation after the answers have been broken into their … Read more >>

Azed 1999

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With the exception of one or two answers that are still beyond me, I found this very much the usual Azed, with good sound wordplay. Much wading through Chambers: Azed always seems to … Read more >>

Independent 7470/Phi

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As usual, an utterly satisfactory crossword from Phi. There are some less than A-list place names, but before anyone complains they should remember that Phi lives in New Zealand, so he has as … Read more >>

Independent 7461/Tees

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An incredibly difficult offering from Tees today. Incredibly difficult, so far as I’m concerned, anyway. I can just imagine all those people logging on to this blog in the hope that they can … Read more >>

Independent 7456/Dac

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The usual excellent crossword from Dac. There is absolutely nothing (apart perhaps from 20dn) that I have any problem with, and all the clues have a deceptively simple and elegant surface. Across 1 HOPELESS … Read more >>

Independent 7451/Nimrod

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All this was far too difficult for me and if it hadn’t been for the reveal function I’m sure I’d never have finished, because there are still several that I can’t understand. The … Read more >>