Guardian

Solving time: 65 mins A very nice Christmas jumbo from Araucaria, with the phrases “We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year” and “God rest you merry gentlemen” hidden in … Read more >>

Boatman’s third outing in the Guardian, and, completely by coincidence, my third chance to blog him. Another enjoyable puzzle, with some excellent clues – I particularly liked 25ac, 1dn and 19dn. Best wishes … Read more >>

Thankfully not that complicated today after a late night, but a reasonable challenge.  There are lots of straightforward formulations, but with nice surfaces and some tricky meanings. Either that or my brain’s still … Read more >>

This was rather tough going until we got the Hogmanay message around the outside (FOR THE SAKE OF AULD LANG SYNE), but good fun nonetheless. There are a few bits of devious wordplay … Read more >>

dd = double definition cd = cryptic definition rev = reversed or reversal ins = insertion cha = charade ha = hidden answer *(fodder) = anagram What a lovely puzzle. It was so … Read more >>

What a treat! I have been so looking forward to my first Araucaria blog but didn’t expect to get it on a Monday. [That’s not to say I wouldn’t have been glad to … Read more >>

Am solving and blogging now after a night out knowing that I won’t get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow/this morning.. surprisingly easy for a Paul, I felt, with a lot of easyish … Read more >>

This is the first Pasquale that I’ve done as a blogger, and sadly I have very little time to devote to it – so apologies for not including more commentary, links, etc. Anyway, … Read more >>

As sometimes happens, I filled in the grid very quickly but took a while to come up with the reasoning behind some of the clues. A vague Christmas theme, a lot of anagrams … Read more >>

Solving time: 16 mins, one missing (6dn) If I’d been well schooled in Brontë, this would have been one of my fastest solves of an Araucaria crossword – surprising, considering the grid, which … Read more >>

Not too hard today but a few unsatisfactory clues. “” = homophone * = anagram < = reversed Across 1. SCARCE. SCARFACE – ‘FA’.  Fa is the subdominant note of the scale. 5. … Read more >>

Apologies for any errors here – I’m rather beset by work and illness at the moment. My partner did about half of these, so thanks to her for the help… Across 9,19,7 and … Read more >>

A bit of a mixed bag today, with some very simple anagrams a a few nice clues, but also some rather weak ones, and a couple of obscure (to me) references. Key: dd … Read more >>

Across 9,8 OSCAR PETERSON: anagram of SOON around CARPETERS (layers) 10 JAZZ: JA + ZZ (sound of snoring) 11 COUNT BASIE: COUNT (consider) + I in BASE (essence) 12,17 BILLIE HOLIDAY: LIB (reversed) … Read more >>

dd = double definition cd = cryptic definition rev = reversed or reversal ins = insertion cha = charade ha = hidden answer *(fodder) = anagram A painless start to the week. Quite … Read more >>