Never knowingly undersolved
A ‘centripetal’ jigsaw, with 20 clues in a mystery sequence, two unclued ‘kitchen items’, and a solitary square in the middle to be deduced as an ‘appropriate’ Roman numeral. Help! Stop the world, … Read more >>
The preamble for this Genius puzzle was fairly short and told us… that each of the 26 solutions begins with a different letter, which is ignored in its clue. The … Read more >>
An apparently anonymous puzzle for July, offering an unusual twist on a familiar device. As Gaufrid pointed out to me, the identity of the setter was in fact available by doing an archive search, but not on the page where the puzzle itself was to be found.
The preamble states that: Each clue contains a one word surplus to requirements. The initial letters of these words, in clue order spell out a group, followed by the title of one of … Read more >>
A tricky letters latent puzzle from Monk.
The preamble for Genius 142, when you can work your way through the hotch-potch of ‘temporary’ (?) workarounds the Grauniad have built around this ‘non-standard’ puzzle which has been there for 10-plus years, … Read more >>
The preamble told us that in 11 clues the wordplay produces a letter surplus to the solution. In order, these 11 letters provide a cryptic definition for 10 other solutions, represented in their … Read more >>
The special instructions seemed vaguely familiar, and after a bit of searching I found that the idea of the definition applying to the answer of a different clue was used a couple of … Read more >>
I should never have said that the December Genius was easier than the Christmas special puzzle; this Genius was much harder than December’s.
A message from Joyce: Before you read the preamble, I would like to apologise for my error in scheduling the date for publication. What I forgot to change was the year. I would like … Read more >>
For Genius 136, Puck tells us that “Eight solutions include one or more thematic elements that are absent from their clues. Before submitting your completed entry you must make a single numerical adjustment in … Read more >>
The preamble told us that all solutions are thematic, wholly or in part. All clues contain normal definitions but, with 18 of them, the wordplay ignores the thematic element. I … Read more >>
A Genius puzzle by Enigmatist – words to strike fear in a blogger’s heart. Fortunately this turned out to be one of his slightly more merciful offerings, though in traditional style it started … Read more >>