Guardian Genius

The preamble told us that all solutions are thematic, wholly or in part.  All clues contain normal definitions but, with 18 of them, the wordplay ignores the thematic element.       I … Read more >>

A Genius puzzle by Enigmatist – words to strike fear in a blogger’s heart. Fortunately this turned out to be one of his slightly more merciful offerings, though in traditional style it started … Read more >>

I can usually finish a Genius puzzle in about an hour, 90 minutes at the outside, but this one took nearly a whole morning before the grid was filled, and I had to … Read more >>

We haven’t done the Genius crossword for a while, but this was a very enjoyable one. We found it hard going for the first week or so, but eventually figured out that what … Read more >>

The preamble to Genius 130 states: “Before being entered in the grid, six solutions must undergo 24 down 9, while another six must undergo 26 15. In the process only valid words may … Read more >>

The preamble told us that eleven clues lead to the second part of a thematically related solution, not further defined.  However, the letter counts with these clues refer to the first part of … Read more >>

I had heard in advance that Boatman was to be the setter of this Genius, so I was a little apprehensive about it, as I often find even his regular puzzles quite hard. … Read more >>

The twist in this puzzle was that each clue contained a superfluous word.  The initial letters of these words spell out the opening line of a work, which proved to be a song … Read more >>

Given the “Special instructions: 16 is displayed in all other solutions. All clues lack definitions.” my first step was to look at 16ac but I could not parse the clue other than to … Read more >>

Quite typically, I forgot I was meant to be blogging the Genius puzzle this month, so we solved it in a rush this morning in order to get this post done. This was … Read more >>

The preamble, or ‘Special Instructions’, as the Genius calls them, tell us to resolve one clash in each across solution, working out which of the clashing pair ‘best fits’ the grid. These corrected … Read more >>

This Genius puzzle by Puck had a fairly short preamble, as follows: Eight solutions, lacking further definition, are of a kind (one of them disputedly)  Their type can be confirmed by finding the … Read more >>

As is often the case in Genius puzzles, the special instructions were a little mysterious at first: “Seven solutions are of a kind and lack further definition. They must be suitably transformed before … Read more >>

This puzzle by Crucible used a device also to be found in the previous puzzle in this series by this setter, No 113 in November last year.  A number of clues (19 in … Read more >>