Guardian

We seem to be without a Guardian blog today so here is a breakdown of the wordplay. I’ll leave it to regular Guardian solvers to provide comments on the clues. . . Across … Read more >>

Quite a gentle one today after Brendan’s toughie on Monday, and maybe it suffers in comparison to Paul’s Beatlefest yesterday, but some nice clues here, though as ever I have a couple of … Read more >>

dd = double definition cd = cryptic definition rev = reversed or reversal ins = insertion cha = charade ha = hidden answer *(fodder) = anagram What a nostalgic trip down memory lane … Read more >>

Quite tricky for a Monday, in my opinion.  A minor theme of -ee suffixes (9A, 12A, 30A, 17D, 18D) and the little square of three-letter words around the centre was quite interesting. Lots … Read more >>

Solving time: 12:56 I probably found this a little easier than usual for Araucaria, until I came to the last three clues (EMBRYO, MULCT and STEEL [BLUE]) which took a fair chunk of … Read more >>

An interesting grid, dominated by four long Down clues.  I managed most of it ok but came unstuck on 6D due to mis-marking it as 6,9 instead of 5,10.  A lot of the … Read more >>

As usual with Gordius’s puzzles, I found this one rather difficult, so there are quite a few questions below. It was very enjoyable, but something of a guilty pleasure considering the amount of … Read more >>

Some great clues here. Very entertaining but not easy. Across 1 CYBORG: CrY (losing R) + BORG (tennis player) 4,23 CANDLELIGHT: CAN + L (last letter of girL) in DELIGHT 9 TABU: TAB … Read more >>

dd = double definition cd = cryptic definition rev = reversed or reversal ins = insertion cha = charade ha = hidden answer *(fodder) = anagram Quite an enjoyable puzzle with some varied … Read more >>

No difficulties here, apart from the ones I made for myself by initially guessing SUBSTITUTE for 3dn. A nice gentle start to the week from Rufus. Key: dd = double definition cd = … Read more >>

Solving time: 9:51, with a whopping three mistakes (12ac, 26ac and 3dn). Very much 1-0 to the setter – I fell headlong into a beautifully-laid trap at 12ac (and shot myself in the … Read more >>

I’m a bit pushed for time this morning so apologies for the rather brief comments. A mixed bag today, I thought – nothing terribly exciting, and a few cryptic definitions that I thought … Read more >>

An interesting theme today, 23A is quite correct!  It took me longer than I expected, mainly because the theme psyched me out a bit! * = anagram “” = homophone dd = double … Read more >>

Apologies for the late posting today – I’m stuck on a train, so internet access is a bit frustrating, and I’m afraid that as a result some of these explanations aren’t as well … Read more >>

dd = double definition cd = cryptic definition rev = reversed or reversal ins = insertion cha = charade ha = hidden answer *(fodder) = anagram Today, I had to keep looking above … Read more >>