Guardian

A fun and quite quick puzzle to start the week. 12d and 25a were the troublesome ones for me. Across 1. COMPASS CO = “firm” + M = “a thousand” + PASS = … Read more >>

Solving time: 20 mins plus another couple of days mulling over 13dn and 25ac. I’m afraid I thought this was a poor puzzle. There is a strange theme with the phrase ‘dead-end’ (or, … Read more >>

I guessed the planetary theme almost immediately, knowing that “planet” means “wanderer”, from the fact that the planets move in the sky relative to the so-called “fixed stars”. It’s not a complete set: … Read more >>

Across 1 PENANCE PENCE around AN 5 LAMPREY LAM+PREY 10 SPRY SPY i.e. “mole” around R[esistance] 11 APOTHEOSIS (Sophie ‘as to)* 12 PRESTO PO around REST – a spider is one of the … Read more >>

Apologies for the late post – I’m afraid I woke up late in an inconvenient time zone, don’t have access to a printer, found my online Chambers subscription had run out (and it … Read more >>

dd = double definition cd = cryptic definition rev = reversed or reversal ins = insertion cha = charade ha = hidden answer *(fodder) = anagram A very entertaining and at the same … Read more >>

Perhaps aided by a bit more sleep than normal, I found this fairly quick-going but with a few unsatisfying clues. Across 1. IRATE. 1 + R. + A ‘TE’. 4. INDICATE. 1ACTEDIN*. Odd … Read more >>

Solving time: 11½ mins, one mistake (15dn: ‘sagebrass’ for SAGEBRUSH) Paul had a puzzle on Wednesday (21st) which I found very difficult. This felt slightly easier, certainly to get going with, but was … Read more >>

Fairly straightforward for a Friday. Across clue no. here comment here 1 PAGEANT: AGE in PANT (huff and puff) 5 PLONKER: PLONK (wine) + ER (half of beER) 9 ROOST: ROO (Australian animal) … Read more >>

We got through this very fast indeed – I don’t think there’s much that should have caused problems. The surface readings are very nice throughout. Across 8. ACHILLES CHILL in SEA = “tide” … Read more >>

Across 8. MAKE LOVE. M(AKEL(a))OVE. 9. PRISE. “PRIZE”. 10. FISH. (thie)FISH(opeless). 11. BANANA SKIN. BA(NANA)SKIN. Baskin Robbins is a chain of ice cream sellers. 12. STABLE. double def. 14. CHIPMUNK. CHIP + “MONK”.  … Read more >>

dd = double definition cd = cryptic definition rev = reversed or reversal ins = insertion cha = charade ha = hidden answer *(fodder) = anagram Quite a challenging set of clues with … Read more >>

A bit of a Grauniad glitch meant that the online version was late in appearing, but it all seems to be sorted out now. I found this a bit more difficult than some … Read more >>

Solving time: 19 mins I found this the hardest prize puzzle for some time (the recent Jumbo excepted) & really struggled to get started. The inclusion of three foreign language classical arias was … Read more >>