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.

Azed 1899/19th October

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A nice crossword from Azed, with several good clues. His grids are always excellent: how he manages to fit in so many long words and avoid using three-letter-words I don’t know. Across 1 STARCH BLOCKER — … Read more >>

Independent 6870/Dac

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Several quite brilliant long anagrams in Dac’s typically excellent crossword today Across 1 POP SHOP — 2 defs 5 B(IOM)ASS 9 NO RM A 10/11 INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU — (counters a US police)* 12 … Read more >>

Independent 6848/Phi

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The usual excellence from Phi. I suspect there’s a Nina that I can’t see, since 8dn is only mentioned in two clues, and if that’s all there is then it seems a bit … Read more >>

Independent 6836/Punk

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When people say things like “You’ve got to get on to the wavelength of the setter”, my inclination is to say “Rubbish. A cryptic is a cryptic and they all more or less … Read more >>

Independent 6828/Dac

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As usual an apparently perfect crossword from Dac — nothing remotely controversial, strong anagrams, sound clues with good surfaces. How he does it week after week I just don’t know. Across 1 RUMP … Read more >>

Azed 1891 – Plain

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In Azed’s crosswords there is always an enormous amount of Chambers-checking meanings of words. If this blog were to contain all the unusual definitions it would be three times as long. I’ll assume … Read more >>

Independent 6822/Dac

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The usual excellent crossword from Dac, hard enough (it took a while to get started), but not too hard. Everything, apart from one answer, went in slowly but regularly. Across 1 MALAGA — … Read more >>

Independent 6815/Morph

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This took ages — Morph seems to be getting very difficult nowadays. This wasn’t helped by the fact that there were some answers that appear a bit tenuous, although it’s more likely that … Read more >>

Independent 6812/Phi

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Only 24 clues here, which I think is about as few as it’s reasonably possible to have in a 15-by-15 crossword where the Ximenean edict of having no answers with more unchecked than … Read more >>

Independent 6805/Math

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A peculiarly tricky crossword from Math today, although I don’t know if that’s because I was trying to combine solving it with listening to the cricket. A couple that I don’t understand, but no … Read more >>