Guardian

An excellent, if easy, puzzle from Brummie with a surplus of good anagrams and partial anagrams. Some of the clues were very wordy, several running to three lines, but every word seemed to … Read more >>

Doing better than last week – I’ve managed to post in the morning even though the paperboy delivered the Telegraph with ‘Sorry, no Gaurdian’ written on it (no irony intended, I assume). Sorry if … Read more >>

Solving time: 14:48 The preamble to this puzzle read: “Lands here are 4-ed [linked] (as our non-PC forebears would think) by 14 down [‘The missing’].” The grid contains eight countries. At first I … Read more >>

Rover, is another Guardian setter who overuses the cryptic definition. Some of the definitions here just weren’t cryptic or were very obvious. When Rover stayed away from this device there were some good … Read more >>

Solving time approx. 20 minutes. Araucaria again. I got him last week too, on the Wednesday. What have I done to deserve this? Actually most of it wasn’t too bad today, although I … Read more >>

Oh dear, it had to happen. Did the crossword, pottered around the house all morning while someone fixed the broken drain that’s been causing a stink in my house, checked the site a … Read more >>

Solving time: 20’ Rather fast for me for a Brendan. Though I didn’t get all the wordplays while solving and had to rely on definitions. There are a couple of themelets here (war … Read more >>

Ah Rufus! You either love him or hate him! I counted 11 cryptic definitions/double meaning type clues in this puzzle. I think one of my fellow bloggers commented a couple of weeks ago … Read more >>

Solving time: 20:15 I was pretty slow to spot the thematic bits, which were many and crucial, so I’m not too disappointed with the time. In fact I’m pleased just to have completed … Read more >>

A pretty straightforward puzzle, with no obscure German towns or archaic words and only one two fairly minor quibbles for me. A couple of the anagrams give themselves away rather too cheaply, but Chifonie makes … Read more >>

I expected a Pasquale puzzle to be straightforward with good cluing, and for the most part it was. However, I had to use TEA to find the final answer, 14ac. Even with maximum … Read more >>

I was at a beer-tasting event last night, so was hoping for an easy puzzle today – no such luck! I groaned when I saw it was Araucaria, but after looking over the … Read more >>

Apologies for the lateness of this entry, but I had technical problems earlier today, and have since had to sit through a mind-numbing Property Strategy meeting for a couple of hours.  The delay … Read more >>

Solving time: 16:49.26 I usually don’t time myself down to the split-second but I have a new desktop timer gadget thingy, with hundredths of a second which will be useful at the next … Read more >>