Guardian

A nice enough crossword from Araucaria, but not one that really grabbed my attention.  I got the feeling that Arucaria could have produced something much cleverer with this theme if he had really put his … Read more >>

Challenging but enjoyable with a lot of clever surface cluing. Across 1 CLEAVE C[hop] + LEAVE=”up sticks” 4 ETCHINGS ETC=”and more of the same” + [t]HINGS=”items needing no introduction” 9 MOSES Grandma MOSES … Read more >>

A very enjoyable crossword from Shed. I got stuck on quite a few here, but I suspect that people won’t generally have found this too difficult. Across 9. AROSE A + ROSE = … Read more >>

I was delighted to see Crucible’s name on this puzzle and I was not disappointed.  His crosswords often have a theme and here we have a nice cheerful one, with no obscurities, I … Read more >>

Thank goodness for Wikipedia, without whose help I would be quite lost especially when the area featured today is foreign to me in every sense of the word. In my six years in … Read more >>

Apologies for a late and rather hurried Bank Holiday blog. It’s always a pleasure to see Brendan’s name, and this puzzle was enjoyable as ever. Regular readers will know that there’s always a … Read more >>

Enigmatist kindly dropped in to give us a start the day before this puzzle came out, by telling us that it was solvable but we might need a diary. This, together with the … Read more >>

Apologies for the late post but for some reason the scheduled blogger hasn’t been able to make it today. This is just a simple clue analysis since I didn’t solve the puzzle but … Read more >>

Philistine hasn’t yet got a profile on the Guardian website, let alone made it to Michael Curl’s ‘Who’s Who’, so I think we can take it that s/he is a new setter. This … Read more >>

I was surprised to find that I haven’t blogged an Araucaria puzzle for just over six months (since when I have met the man himself for the first time), but this makes up … Read more >>

I do not remember ever blogging this setter and today’s mini-theme of people who need their heads examined left me as cold as if I were reading about 18th-century Russian shipbuilding terminology. However, … Read more >>

I found this easier than some recent Rufuses; not too heavy on the cryptic definitions (which I regard as a plus), but making up for it in the envelope department – if not … Read more >>

A delight as ever to tackle another offering from the Master, and this time there is only one clue which, to my mind, offends Ximenean principles (12 across).   A couple of other clues … Read more >>