Guardian – Page 402 – Fifteensquared

Guardian 25,248 – Araucaria

Thu February 17, 2011 at 4:23 am by manehi

Not a surprising choice of setter following yesterday’s rather special crossword – this puzzle looked a little daunting at first but wasn’t too tricky once the grid began to fill. Slightly unsure on … Read more >>

Guardian 25,247 / Enigmatist, Paul and Shed

Wed February 16, 2011 at 10:56 am by mhl

I’ll leave no spoilers in this paragraph since it appears on the front page and this is a really special puzzle… This puzzle is a wonderful tribute to Araucaria, whose 90th birthday it … Read more >>

Guardian 25246 Quantum – Breezy Walk in the Park

Tue February 15, 2011 at 8:45 amTue February 15, 2011 at 1:48 am by Uncle Yap

Quite a breezy walk in the park from Quantum. Nothing very challenging. ACROSS 1 PRESUMPTIVE *(US REP MET VIP) 9 NORMANS NORM (standard) ANS (answer) 10 RISOTTO *(STIR TOO) 11 UNORDERED dd 12 … Read more >>

Guardian Quiptic 587 / Arachne

Mon February 14, 2011 at 10:16 am by Gaufrid

I cannot comment as to how this puzzle compares with other Quiptics with regard to degree of difficulty because I haven’t solved one since my original blog, published when we first started covering … Read more >>

Guardian 25,245 / Brendan

Mon February 14, 2011 at 9:23 am by Eileen

A delightfully entertaining puzzle from Brendan, with an added diversion at the end, to find the thirteen themed answers referred to in 9ac. I thoroughly enjoyed both the solve, which was not too … Read more >>

Guardian Prize 25,238 / Brummie

Sat February 12, 2011 at 2:17 pmSat February 12, 2011 at 12:10 am by Eileen

I think I’ve said before that I’m always a little apprehensive when I see Brummie’s name on a puzzle that I’m about to solve, let alone blog. However, it fairly quickly all came … Read more >>

Guardian No 25,243 by Arachne

Fri February 11, 2011 at 10:37 amFri February 11, 2011 at 3:37 am by PeterO

There are some clever clues here, and a few too clever by far for me. Across 1. Bird’s noise when pushing out many eggs (6) CUCKOO KOO is ‘many eggs’, which is the … Read more >>

Guardian 25,242 / Paul

Fri February 11, 2011 at 11:15 amThu February 10, 2011 at 8:13 am by mhl

As usual, a very entertaining solve from Paul, with a nice theme that shouldn’t have caused too many problems. (Incidentally, I’m sure we all wish the setter congratulations on his recent engagement!) Across … Read more >>

Guardian 25,241 / Gordius

Wed February 9, 2011 at 12:39 pmWed February 9, 2011 at 9:15 am by Eileen

A fairly typical Gordius, I think, comprising mostly anagrams, simple charades and/or insertions and double definitions, with several niggles, as usual for me with this setter. Across 7 DOG-COLLAR: DOG [reversal of GOD … Read more >>

Guardian 25240 Puck … Everything and then some more

Wed February 9, 2011 at 1:18 amTue February 8, 2011 at 2:32 am by Uncle Yap

Phew! What an assignment today. Puck employed almost every cryptic device and then some more. The way I solve a puzzle, I must stop and rationalise the workplay before I move on … … Read more >>

Guardian Quiptic 586 / Beale

Wed February 9, 2011 at 9:27 amMon February 7, 2011 at 10:31 am by Big Dave

While I enjoyed this puzzle, I thought it was a bit on the hard side for a Quiptic. All definitions given are from Chambers 11th Edition. Most of the standard abbreviations used in … Read more >>

Guardian 25,239 – Rufus

Mon February 7, 2011 at 8:53 amMon February 7, 2011 at 8:22 am by Andrew

A very easy Rufus today, where my main difficulty came with some less-than-brilliant cryptic definitions that seemed too obvious to be true. I’m a little short of time so please excuse the rather … Read more >>

Genius 91 by Tramp

Sun February 6, 2011 at 12:04 am by bridgesong

Solving time : about a day and a half. I found this hard, partly because of a grammatical error in the instructions which made them more obscure than was necessary. There were two … Read more >>

Guardian Prize Puzzle No 25,232 by Araucaria – a river runs through it

Sat February 5, 2011 at 12:31 pmSat February 5, 2011 at 12:05 am by bridgesong

Solving time: about an hour, although that left three clues unsolved. Many thanks to my neighbour and solving partner Timon, for his help with this and many other crosswords and for introducing me … Read more >>

Guardian 25,237 / Orlando

Fri February 4, 2011 at 2:07 pmFri February 4, 2011 at 5:57 am by mhl

Strangely, this is my second Orlando puzzle to blog in two weeks, having met the setter himself in Derby on the weekend in between 🙂 As usual, this was a very good puzzle – … Read more >>