Guardian

This was hard work – with some answers really belonging in an advanced weekend puzzle — I found myself pulling out Chambers more than zero times, which is too many for a daily. … Read more >>

Solving time: 12 minutes Pleasant thematic start to the week, reminiscent of Altair’s puzzles, for those of an age.  A nice puzzle for those wanting to find their way into cryptics and themed … Read more >>

Solving time: 11:58 The clueing in this puzzle was more ‘down the line’ than normal for Araucaria, I thought. Nothing too obscure either, although a couple where the wordplay helped me out. 3dn … Read more >>

Hmm, well as today’s fifteensquared quality controller I have a few negative items to feedback here (OK, that’s enough of that – internal ed). Too many rather straightforward cryptic defs for my liking. Sorry if I seem … Read more >>

Across 1 COPPER: double definition 4 CLEMATIS: M in CLEAT IS. Clematis Vitalba is a wild flower, also known as Old Man’s Beard 9 NORMA: hidden in londoN OR MAnchester. It’s a 19th … Read more >>

Talk amongst yourselves…

Between a SNAFU with my contract and a chest cold, I actually had some leisure to look at this properly this morning. Just as well – Pasquale is one of the compilers who … Read more >>

Rufus at his finest: an excellent set of misleading and satisfying cryptic definitions and some devious wordplay as well. As per usual Rufus’s surfaces are coherent, sensible and, as a result, often hard … Read more >>

Solving time: 11:40 This puzzle had a theme of 12 double word phrases, where the second word in one phrase was the first in the next. Starting with 9ac, these were BLANK, CARTRIDGE, … Read more >>

A couple of unfamiliar words had me scurrying to the dictionary, e.g. PSITTACOSIS and I’m still not sure about a wordplay or two. Par for the course. Updated based on comments. Across 1 … Read more >>

This is a new setter to me, and I enjoyed the puzzle on the whole. It didn’t take long to do, and, if the week’s puzzles are to get harder as the week … Read more >>

A bit of an American theme, and quite a few container type clues from Paul this week. Not as tricky as Paul can be, but a couple of clues held me up for … Read more >>

Several very easy hidden clues mingled in with some more difficult clues. One word I had to cheat on and look up, another I just couldn’t get despite it being easy, with hindsight! … Read more >>

Short of time to give much explanation here, but the answers were pretty straight I thought. The only ones I had a problem with were SOURDOUGH (it is North American prospector) and I … Read more >>

Solving time: 13:05 A definition/letter-mixture puzzle from Araucaria this week. Please say in the comments if you found this a welcome change or a bit of a chore. Some definitions are given in … Read more >>