Enigmatic Variations

I might be being unduly unfair but I was dissatisfied with this puzzle overall. On the plus side the idea was neat and simple and many of the clues were good and relatively … Read more >>

What a delightful way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon, letters latent for the across clues and extra words in the down ones, just my cup of tea. There … Read more >>

Subsidiary indications in 32 clues lead to extra letters which spell out a novel and its author. The remaining ten clues lack definitions and, either alone or paired, are thematic. 22A is a … Read more >>

Minimal blog crammed in between a busy work week and a holiday. That also means I’ll be unable to comment on comments so mistakes and omissions will go uncorrected. I struggled initially as … Read more >>

There is no point in repeating or paraphrasing the preamble here because solvers and any other interested parties will have already read it. I made slow but steady progress with this puzzle though … Read more >>

The grid represents some “fields of action”, and so long as they’re not football or rugby fields I should be OK. The subsidiary indication in each down clue has an extra letter; these … Read more >>

Jophu is another new setter to me so I didn’t know what to expect with this one. The clues were normal and, as it turned out, fairly straightforward. There were some very easy … Read more >>

We were told that 8 answers had been affected by a quotation in ODQ, and its author, which ran clockwise round the perimeter plus 3 squares in row 2 (see below). The quotation … Read more >>

No EV last week, it got bumped by a £500 Cryptic (I bet that had a few entries). However, the number still got used, so it’s onwards to 844 this week. The EV … Read more >>

I’d not come across Flashy-hat before in any of the usual outlets so I wasn’t sure whether to expect heavy meal to keep me eating over the holiday or a light starter before … Read more >>

On my initial run through the clues I had a feeling that this might be the first EV that I’d failed to solve, particularly as I was still struggling with the final stage … Read more >>

I don’t know whether I feel relieved that the first two puzzles I’ve blogged have been so easy, or cheated out of a few hours entertainment. I know that the EV is generally … Read more >>

A very brief introduction today. This was an excellent puzzle with a tough twist at the end. Oddly my other blog today, IQ100, is also about the puzzle name. Here variations of ENIGMATIC … Read more >>

Overall, a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours on wet Sunday afternoon. I thought some of the normal clues were a little on the easy side but this was compensated for … Read more >>

Being a natural pessimist, I had visions that my first blog would end up being for a puzzle by Dimitry, Kea or Oxymoron (Schadenfreude’s EV pseudonym), so seeing it was by Syd Lexis … Read more >>