Independent

I often grimace when I see puzzles in which many answers require initially solving a key clue, but this one was cracking stuff. Hard for sure, but very enjoyable, cracking stuff. For no … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism A fairly standard Monday puzzle from Quixote with a nice mixture of clues, mostly on the easy side. As is often the case, there … Read more >>

Crosophile’s Independent on Sunday puzzles seem to me to be pitched just right — fairly straightforward clues, but with some nice little deceptive twists, and plenty of amusing surface reading. Across 1 SNOWY … Read more >>

How lucky am I – A Tyrus puzzle to blog again. Perhaps, it might be time to start possibly cogitating a few answers. So a theme word this week, which is needed to … Read more >>

Well after yesterday’s mauling by Nestor I was quite relieved to see a Phi in normal Friday Indy mode and give me back some belief that I can do cryptic crosswords. This seems … Read more >>

Having enjoyed my last encounter with Nestor a month ago, from which I emerged with my solver’s pride more or less intact, I was relishing the prospect of solving this one when I … Read more >>

Lovely stuff as ever from Dac. I found some of this very tough with a lot of cleverly hidden definitions and struggled with the 2 long cryptic def. clues. I cannot find a … Read more >>

Rather difficult today, I thought. It took me a while to get under way, but everything made sense eventually and there are some good clues here. The theme escaped me for a while. … Read more >>

We had an Eimi a few weeks ago, but apart from that we haven’t seen a great deal of him in the past few months.  He has emerged from the woodwork today, however, … Read more >>

A fair puzzle that a family can enjoy together on a Sunday. Comparing this with the IOS puzzle a month ago when I last blogged, this lacks the sparkle that Eimi manages to … Read more >>

Six pairs of linked clues, all with a common reference to ’20 in 5’…we’re off into thematic territory – and there is something here that rings a bell… The logical thing to do … Read more >>

I found that I raced through most of this one before grinding to a standstill when just one or two clues from the end. Bizarrely, 1 kept me guessing till the very end, … Read more >>

A rare weekday appearance from Monk. Not sure I’ve ever blogged one of his puzzles before, but I have to say I found this pretty tricky. There were a lot of very well … Read more >>

Dac is presumably going to appear on Saturday, and instead of a fairly easy task I found that we have a setter with whom I usually have some trouble. But either I’m getting … Read more >>

I had a good chat with Anax on Saturday night at the Derby Sloggers &Betters so it was a surprise that he didn’t say he was the setter for today (let alone give … Read more >>