Guardian

Given the number of black squares in the grid and the lack of difficulty in this puzzle, I was expecting there to be a theme, but, if it’s there, I can’t find it. … Read more >>

Felt a bit Araucarian today – surfaces sacrificed at the altar of clever wordplay. I had to look up SALOPETTE – which I think is contrived (derived from SALOP which I recognized as … Read more >>

A pretty straightforward Monday solve (10 mins-ish), tightly clued and accessible as ever, with quite a few anagrams and lots of cryptic definitions – some very good, others a tad obvious. About half the answers came … Read more >>

Solving time: 7:16 I’m not sure I’ve ever solved an Araucaria puzzle faster than this. ‘Collie’ was my first solve, followed (via a look at 27ac) by ‘flour’ and then somehow an inspired … Read more >>

My blog day falling conveniently on a day off, I settled down at 8.30 to get the crossword out of the way,but it was not to be. Several hours of partner stranded by tube … Read more >>

Apologies for this being a day late. I had to go to a customer site yesterday and didn’t get back till 8pm, when I found that my ADSL connection was still down. I … Read more >>

Some nice well-disguised wordplay here – especially wrt use of head and tail letters – while preserving good surfaces. Two identical nippy clues here which are well-handled. Across 1 DAWDLER – (Edward, L)*: … Read more >>

A typical Paul effort with clues ranging from easy to difficult, and a collection of words some will know, and others won’t. I quite enjoy the mental challenge of a Paul puzzle, but … Read more >>

Solving time: 19:10 This should have been a fast time, as I spotted half the theme straight away from 17ac (TIGON). Unfortunately I then displayed immense slowness in various places, especially 2dn and … Read more >>

A slightly harder than usual Rufus puzzle. I’m mystified by a couple of wordplays (8A and 12A) still. One weakfish cryptic def (1D) but a couple of hard clever clues as well. Across … Read more >>

The blog for this puzzle will be appearing soon…

Maybe it’s jet-lag but I found it pretty hard to get into this puzzle. I wonder whether the NINA in the first column of unches is intentional or just my feverish jet-lagged brain. … Read more >>

A good, not too difficult puzzle from Pasquale, with two long double-entry clues of 24 letters each making up the perimeter. Both were very clever anag + lits, but such clues present an … Read more >>

France United States United Kingdom Norway Solving time approx. 10 minutes Brendan is also Virgilius in the Indy, so I was expecting some thematic content in a reasonably straightforward puzzle – and I … Read more >>

Very enjoyable puzzle from Shed. As you’ll see, there were a few bits and pieces I wasn’t sure about but was still able to make educated guesses thanks to some excellent clueing. Across … Read more >>