Never knowingly undersolved
Quite a tricky offering from Imogen today, with some obscurities in both answers and wordplay. My first breakthrough was the long answer at 26a, but there were still a few hurdles along the … Read more >>
A pleasing cryptic from Hectence to herald in the new format Guardian (at least I think it’s today, and the style of the header has changed online). Abbreviations cd … Read more >>
Apologies for the truncated blog, but short of time this morning. A bit of a curate’s egg from Arachne this morning, and one clue (16dn) that I couldn’t parse. Thanks, Arachne. ACROSS 1 … Read more >>
Has Tramp got easier since his first appearances in the paper or am I just imagining this? Thanks Tramp for a fun puzzle. Scooby-dooby-doo!
Apologies for this late posting. This was difficult for me. Thanks to Puck. Definitions are underlined in the clues. The theme is Shakespearean, and associated words are marked “*”. There are also a … Read more >>
The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27403.
It’s eighteen months since I blogged a Qaos puzzle so I was very pleased to see this one. Qaos puzzles usually have a theme – often a ghost one. This time, GHOST is … Read more >>
Lots of fun – favourites were 13ac, 4dn, 5dn, and 8dn. Thanks, Philistine.
Anto’s turn in the Quiptic slot this week.
It’ll be interesting to see what sort of pattern of setters we get for “Easy Monday” after Rufus’s retirement. Chifonie last week, and now Pan, who has been more of a Quiptic setter, … Read more >>
I suspect this is the Paul puzzle which appeared on line for a while by mistake on the day Rufus’ retirement was announced – in which case, perhaps some of you did it … Read more >>
As seems to happen regularly, Vlad softened me up with a few easy clues, but left me struggling afterwards. Still, I got there in the end, and it all looks perfectly reasonable in … Read more >>
An entertaining puzzle from Paul to brighten a very dull morning. A medley of some easy charades [8ac and 13dn] and insertions [9ac and 5dn] and some very neatly crafted clues [15ac 14dn and … Read more >>
This was the bumper double-grid Christmas crossword from Maskerade. Unfortunately, we found this very hard, and not terribly enjoyable as result – it’ll be interesting to find out what the rest of you … Read more >>
The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27396.