FT

A well-crafted tour through a variety of avenues of general knowledge today.  We seem to cover everything from military history to folklore and geology, by way of a healthy dose of geography along … Read more >>

Monday Prize Crossword from 22 February 2010 Another smooth offering from the slick Dante. Very suitable for beginners to this delightful pastime of solving cryptic crosswords. ACROSS 1 NUDISM *(undies minus E) + … Read more >>

Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of February 20 The top-left corner of this puzzle took me a while. I especially like 21D. Across 1. HECUBA – HE-CUB (young male) + A (a) … Read more >>

The preamble states that five answers have something in common but by my count it could be six. These are: Little Red Riding Hood (2,3dn) and wolf (6dn) Pied Piper (8dn) and rats … Read more >>

One could say this was a gift of a puzzle because by and large most answers were easily obtainable, though I have minor reservations about 7, 18, 19 and 23dn. The parsing for 14dn … Read more >>

The usual from Falcon, elegant and not too taxing. One new word for me, at 24A, nothing too obscure otherwise. The parsing for 27A is foggy still, help invited. // 27A updated. Across … Read more >>

A paddle in the shallow-end today, with the waters only getting above knee-depth with the slightly obscure – but readily deducible – answer at 17D.  Puns and cryptic standalones seem to feature more … Read more >>

Monday Prize Crossword on 15 February 2010 I solved this puzzle while ushering in the Year of the Tiger and hope that the year ahead will be as smooth as the puzzle; nothing … Read more >>

Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of February 13 Yet another excellent puzzle from Cincinnus. My favourite clues in this one are 19A, 28A and 2D. Across 9. BON VOYAGE – anagram of … Read more >>

A pleasant, gentle stroll today with nothing too 13ing, but I think there is an error in one of the clues (20dn) unless my parsing is incorrect. It became clear quite quickly that … Read more >>

A good offering from one of the less frequent FT setters.  Apologies for the late posting; I had solved this last night but didn’t have a chance to fill in the explanations until … Read more >>

Quite straightforward except a few clues in the top-right. Clues for compound words/phrases in this puzzle (1A, 10A, 28A, 5D, for example) split the answer along its natural join. Some of these clues … Read more >>

Something of a class reunion for a lot of old friends here today (10A, 12A, 23A, 1D, 15D, 19D). On a related note,  I did feel an unexpected twinge of childhood nostalgia courtesy … Read more >>

Monday Prize Crossword on 8 February 2010 Dante returns with another gentle week-opener full of smooth clues and slick definitions. ACROSS 1 SPRANG Ins of RANG (telephoned) in SP (starting prices, the odds) … Read more >>

Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of February 6 Mudd gives us some jolly good double definitions here (notably 5A, 21A, 29A, 20D and 21D) but my choice for best clue is the … Read more >>