Independent

One of my favourite ever crosswords that I’ve had the pleasure of blogging was Radian’s classical music-themed Saturday prize puzzle 7,148, back in September. So I was very pleased to find that today … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism An elegant puzzle with some very good clues, although very much on the easy side. 24 was my favourite clue, although I quite liked … Read more >>

The usual nice cryptic from Phi, with some very good clues as always. One which utterly defeats me, but which people will I’m sure fall over themselves to explain. As for a Nina, the … Read more >>

Quite a hard puzzle as one expects from Tyrus, with a theme exemplified by 8 down (an answer I worked out only quite late on) and some other entries and wording used in … Read more >>

This puzzle made a nice coincidental side dish for Stephen Fry’s excellent program (3 days to watch as I write this, if you missed it) on Wagner. Klingsor is an evil magician in … Read more >>

Blimmin’ ‘eck this were tough. We limped to just short of the finishing line, failing to get 12 across and 11 down – comments welcome as ever. Didn’t enjoy this as much as … Read more >>

I found this one really quite challenging for a Wednesday, but there were some very good clues in there, and some impressive anagrams. *=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition. Across 1 … Read more >>

A typically brilliant puzzle from the master of the themed daily, cleverly using the idea of multiple word ‘see x‘ grid entries as the basis for some diocesan double definition deception. This exposed … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism A moderately challenging puzzle by Hypnos. There were no real stand-out clues for me but everything was well constructed. One or two of the … Read more >>

Good stuff as ever from Phi, and we have a pangram to boot. I was frustratingly defeated by the final two clues though! Across 7 BELLOC – (Alexander Graham) BELL + CO> rev. … Read more >>

Cursory research suggests Yorick to be a new setter for us to lock horns with, though I say that with some caution as we’ve seen familiar setters use unfamiliar pseudonyms in the past. … Read more >>

Whilst I used to be pretty well intimidated by Scorpion puzzles, these days I tend to enjoy them a great deal. This was the expected combination of a fairly stiff challenge and moments … Read more >>

Well, this will be appearing on Sloggers and Betters day, so we’re looking forward to putting faces to pseudonyms. Did this relatively quickly, apart from 1 down, which we didn’t figure out until … Read more >>

The usual excellent puzzle from Dac, quite easy to start but nmsindy’s unfamiliarity with films and dogs  slowed me up a bit at the end, solving time 23 mins. Many thanks to Ali … Read more >>

Well thank goodness for the cheat facility on the website. Without it I’d never have completed this: all the clues contain the name of some literary work, and often they are very clever, … Read more >>