Mister Sting

On a first reading, the preamble doesn’t give one a lot to go on: “Though they’re far from alone, seven unclued answers according to two others (taken as a pair) 9, which might … Read more >>

Balancing Acts, eh? What sort of acrobatics does Nudd have in store? He/She/It tells us to highlight “the work in which the quotation was originally attributed”. That’s an odd instruction – what can … Read more >>

Ah, forgive me. Once again, the days run away from me and you are left without your due, a run down of EV972. I read somewhere that Oxymoron was considered “scrupulously fair”. I … Read more >>

This was my favourite EV for some time. It was also one of the easiest, which – I insist – is entirely coincidental. Who would have thought that any language needed a word … Read more >>

I found this rather tougher than some of the recent offerings and even thought for some time that I might be forced to throw in the towel. In fact, there were two clues … Read more >>

The last few EVs have been pretty tough, so I was glad that Salamanca’s offering was on the easy side. The main bulk of thematic material was found in ten undefined entries. Once … Read more >>

I-I-I! Mea culpa! The piercing eye of the acute observer will have noticed that I’m a tiny bit late with this post. Sorry. I was obsessively cataloging my alphabetti spaghetti. I’m sure you’ll … Read more >>

Not too tricky this week and a nice note for what was hopefully the last bit of winter. An awful lot of Scots, too (though, as per usual, nothing that any real Scottish … Read more >>

A tricky one this week, or could it just be that I’m out of practice? (You should take this with a grain of salt. You might find it cheesy. But then again, you … Read more >>

This brought back happy memories of the very first EV that I completed. That one also used this format (splitting the grid into quarters). It wasn’t that long ago, so if you’ve been … Read more >>

Another relatively easy week. I fear that I am being lulled, as Bertie Wooster might have put it, into an f. s. of s. Although there were no messages to be constructed from … Read more >>

A smaller grid this week – only 121 blank squares, instead of the normal 169. Will this translate into a shorter solving time? The preamble offers a slight cause for concern – if the quotation … Read more >>

I wonder if I was alone in finding this tough. In retrospect, the preamble wasn’t unnecessarily misleading. Nor at any time did I think the clueing unfair. Still, for me this EV was one heck … Read more >>

Bonjour! Un petit peu less ceremony with this one – just ten ‘thematically entered’ answers and four unclued entries. Still, there’s some grid highlighting to be done, which always gives one a pleasant … Read more >>

I rather enjoyed this romp. I am, as I have previously confessed, rather fond of the ways and means used by some EVs (including this one): quotations constructed from excised letters and hidden … Read more >>