Guardian

Solving time: Gave up on 14dn after 20 mins, and wished I’d done so earlier! Most of this I managed to rattle through, but then I got stuck for ages on the final … Read more >>

I’m sure there’s a witty title that could be given to this very ingenious and entertaining puzzle, with its themes of days and British pop but I found the puzzle itself challenging enough!  … Read more >>

A relatively straightforward Araucaria, thought including a couple of words that were new to me, with a theme based on various kinds of beating, Key: dd = double definition * = anagram < … Read more >>

I rattled through this fairly quickly and have filled the grid with convincing-looking answers, but a few of the exact reasons escape me.  I decided to blog it anyway rather than wait and … Read more >>

dd = double definition cd = cryptic definition rev = reversed or reversal ins = insertion cha = charade ha = hidden answer *(fodder) = anagram A challenging puzzle which nearly got me … Read more >>

A very good start to the week, with lots of clues that made me smile. I think my particular favourites here were two of the three musical ones: 16 across and 25 down. … Read more >>

Solving time: 9:51 A rare Saturday outing for Brummie. Nothing too difficult, although NO STRINGS, DROSOPHILA and LUTYENS probably accounted for a third of my time. I enjoyed the puzzle but thought a … Read more >>

A remarkable grid with four 15 letter clues going down and lots of inventive and entertaining cluing… Across 8. RIBOSOME RIE (essentially bRIEf) covering BOSOM (“doing what bra does”). Ribosomes are organelles found … Read more >>

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 >>