Never knowingly undersolved
An extra letter in each of the subsidiary indications – straight forward enough but then the answers must be jumbled except for the first and last three rows and first and last 2 … Read more >>
The annual-ish EV outing for Lato this week, and no extra/missing letters/words or misprints to look out for. Instead there were just nine unclued entries, each suggested in one of two ways by … Read more >>
Wiglaf is a new name to me – and doesn’t seem to appear anywhere else on 15×15, so is either a new setter. or one of those occasional collaborations of setters(?). Either way … Read more >>
An ominous title to this EV. Will Chalicea leave me in the Dark?
Seven unclued entries, 18 with extra letters in the wordplay, one clued without definition and quite a convoluted preamble as to how the unclued entries are derived. Would I be tempting fate by saying … Read more >>
I noticed last week that the deadline for EV entries moved, with effect from number 1039, from Friday to Thursday. I guess we should be posting our blogs sometime on Friday now, in … Read more >>
This puzzle certainly wasn’t a sprint…and I had to stop for a few ‘comfort breaks’ along the way…but it turned out to be a very enjoyable EV, with a quirky/off-the-wall denouement. Six unclued … Read more >>
Recently, there have been a number of EVs that have left me staring blankly at a filled grid, unclear as to how to proceed. Although it shouldn’t have been, this was one of those.
So a puzzle with a title of Difficulty – but no indication of its level of difficulty. Nine letters are missing from the subsidiary indications and this then needs to be used to … Read more >>
Wan is a new setter to me. I haven’t seen him in the Listener, EV or Inquisitor series, but he/she may have appeared elsewhere. Consequently, I’ve no idea whether to expect a tough … Read more >>
‘And’, so it goes on – if you read last week’s rant from Mister Sting… This week’s preamble tells us to replace ‘parts of’ 14 clue answers – as ‘forms’ of 26A. All very … Read more >>
First of all, let’s have a rant. The editing was shoddy. Again. There was a missing bar in the grid (making 47ac appear to have 7 letters), ‘for’ was written as ‘fo’ in 7dn, while ‘or’ replaced ‘of’ in 30ac. Only the 7ac mistake was innocuous. I’m sure that the puzzles could be proof read by some enthusiastic amateur if there’s no one willing to do the job properly at the newspaper. At the very least, they could be fixed in the online version. But I digress…
Back to a long preamble, this week. Four clues with double definitions with one entry different by a thematic entry from the other one. The thematic items can then be described by a … Read more >>
Extra letters in the wordplay spelt out a quotation and author, which would help to identify a formation and some constituent parts. A good puzzle this week from Warbler, but nothing too strenuos. … Read more >>
This puzzle had what seemed a rather daunting preamble: across entries intersecting the unclued 12D had to lose ‘something’ which could be construed as a ‘mistake’, replaced by a letter to help form 12D, and … Read more >>