Independent

A puzzle packed full of elegant, concise clues today. On the easier side definitely, but still very enjoyable. Across 1 BELLA – (Alexander Graham) BELL,A 4 REMARKING – RE: MARKING 9 CONTRIVED – … Read more >>

Initially I thought that Virgilius had referred so frequently to Roman numerals that this was in some way the theme, but perhaps it’s just that in the Across clues he’s fitted many numbers … Read more >>

Some very amusing clues from Morph today in a puzzle which was most enjoyable. I’m not sure I have fully understood two clues (13a and 19a) and would welcome any enlightenment that others … Read more >>

I made a rather slow start on this typically pleasant Phi crossword, but when I saw that it was all As in the top unches and Zs at the bottom things became easier. … Read more >>

A tricky challenge from Monk that took me a little while to solve.  The clues were fair and the surfaces were excellent, but some of the answers or definitions were fairly obscure – … Read more >>

An excellent puzzle from Nestor who I had the pleasure of meeting at Sloggers and Betters 5 in London last week. A bit easier than I expected – in particular I got some … Read more >>

Solving time, 19 mins. The usual pleasing puzzle. * = anagram < = reversed ACROSS 6 Margaret (D)RABBLE D = daughter 8 N A (S)T IVES 9 ST RAPPER 11 NA (RK) ED … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition. A very enjoyable arts/literature themed one from Dac, with the usual rock-solid clueing and some chuckles along the way – 1 ac was a gem. … Read more >>

Thankfully not too tricky for the first day back after a long weekend, but a very enjoyable puzzle with an impressive number of “Q”s Across 1 QUACK QUACK – QUACK x 2, ref. … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def Another very difficult puzzle by Tees. I couldn’t really get going until I looked up the Laurence Sterne wikipedia entry to find the answer to … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition. A fairly straightforward one for the most part, I think, although I did have to resort to a bit of cheating to finish it off … Read more >>

A nice, tough offering from Scorpion with some very neat surface readings. There seem to be a lot of clues using abbreviations of one kind or another, some of which were a bit … Read more >>

I found this a bit tougher than usual from Quixote, solving time 28 mins. * = anagram ACROSS 1 PREMIS(E)S 6 B RAISE 9 CARDINAL WOLSEY    (so radically new)* 10 UNHEATED   a in … Read more >>

Lots of interesting history and other information discovered when I researched the answers that I had to check afterwards.  I don’t normally note solving times, but I happened to notice the owl on the … Read more >>

A joy to solve yet another excellent puzzle from Dac.    Solving time, 17 mins. * = anagram ACROSS 1 CAN OF WORMS     Double definition dividing elegantly at this/problem. First answer in the puzzle … Read more >>