Guardian

I don’t know what has happened to Rightback this weekend but something seems to have prevented him from posting a blog so here is a somewhat belated substitute. This ‘alphabetical’ was made a … Read more >>

I found this mostly quite easy (especially in comparison to Arachne’s recent Monday puzzle), though with a few slight obscurities that I needed to check. Several very nice clues where the cryptic structure … Read more >>

Fairly straightforward. You might even say it’s a complete state! Across 7 APPRAISAL: (RA (arist) + IS) in APPAL 8 NIPPY: double definition 9 DRESS CODE: (S (Scotland) + CO (Cobalt)) in DRESDE(n) … Read more >>

We found this rather tough, but with lots of good “A-ha!” moments (e.g. 12a, 14a, 27a, 6d, 21d). There are 10 clues that refer to the theme of drinks and drinking, including the … Read more >>

A welcome return from Brummie, who always entertains. After solving the puzzle, I spent a while staring at the answers, since Brummie often gives us a theme. I thought there might be one … Read more >>

A fairly straightforward puzzle, but with a few clues I wasn’t happy with – some very tortured defs in 12ac, 15ac, 18dn, for instance.  I did like some of the shorter simple clues, … Read more >>

Solving time: 33:34 Probably two-thirds of that time was spent trying to untangle the long phrase starting at 1dn, together with a few other crossing answers (especially 22ac and 23dn). If you knew … Read more >>

An enjoyable crossword, and quite easy for a Friday. Update: thanks to Beermagnet for pointing this out: apparently some versions of the paper have this Araucaria puzzle printed instead. Across 1. OVERPOWER OVER … Read more >>

Found most of this straightforward, but did have to check the definitions of 10, 24 and 27. Particularly liked 12. Across 1 FLAMING FLAMING[o] 5 FORBEAR FOR BEAR 10 OBAN “anything goes” => … Read more >>

I was lucky enough to blog Brendan’s “note” puzzle a couple of weeks ago, and he produced an amazing puzzle yesterday in the Independent (as Virgilius); here he is again with a Pope-themed … Read more >>

A typically enjoyable Paul puzzle, with several witty clues and a couple of cheeky ones. 4ac is a nice reference to his Marathon run – well done, Paul! cd: cryptic definition dd: double … Read more >>

This was an easy, but enjoyable, start to a wet and windy Bank Holiday Monday, just the thing to relax with whilst having a coffee after breakfast. As usual for a Rufus puzzle, … Read more >>

Solving time: 32:35 Wow, that was difficult – and that despite me knowing (for once) a few of the many literary references. I nearly reached for the dictionary / Google on a few … Read more >>

An unfamiliar setter to me, but seems quite fond of anagrams.  In fact once I started to assume every answer was going to be an anagram, the second half went a lot quicker. … Read more >>