Independent

The usual high quality crossword from Phi. I found this a little harder than usual, but have no excuse for doing so: all the answers were perfectly obvious once you had them. I … Read more >>

Anax in rude health today with a few risque moments. Some lovely well written stuff but one I can’t quite figure out. Across 1 Typical – T Y + PIC + A L … Read more >>

In my view, a typical Dac puzzle: medium degree of difficulty, with sound clues that keep one guessing just long enough before resolving themselves in a perfectly satisfactory manner. I even learnt a … Read more >>

I’m sure I’ve blogged a Mordred puzzle before, but I can’t find it anywhere using the search. Anyhow, I’ve certainly solved a few of them and often find them to be pretty tough. … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism A fairly gentle Monday morning offering from the crossword editor with some excellent anagrams. 7 caused me problems, mainly because I’d never heard of … Read more >>

Both straightforward and sound, as usual. 12a gets a mention as my favourite clue this week. Across 1 STOP ‘Pots’ = vessels, reversed 6 INCREMENT *(CERT[a]IN); MEN = workers 10 STONED ONE; D … Read more >>

Tyrus puzzles are never what one might describe as “easy”, but I thought this was going to be a blogging disaster until the theme, and subsequently perimeter Nina were spotted. I still had … Read more >>

Friday with Phi and all’s well. Surprisingly few clues in this, grid suggested nina but I can’t see anything or an obvious theme. The usual mix of nice anagrams and wordplay though. Across … Read more >>

I’ve just discovered that tomorrow, it will be exactly two years since I started blogging here, so many thanks to everyone who has commented and helped me out in that time. Coincidentally, due … Read more >>

2 Dacs on the bounce for me after his move to Thursday last week. I don’t have a problem with this! Most of this went in fairly quickly, but there were a few … Read more >>

Raich’s puzzles are always good and he does not disappoint here. Some of the clues are excellent, although one or two I’m not quite sure about. Now that I look I can see the … Read more >>

Very pleasing puzzle from Glow-worm whose puzzles generally I find at the easier end of the Indy spectrum, solving time, 22 mins.   If memory serves Glow-worm has set quite a few excellent puzzles … Read more >>

I have been doing these Sunday Indies one week late on the Independent site and it took some nice co-operation from friends to get hold of a current puzzle without having to be … Read more >>

I am a fan of complex wordplay rather than cryptic definitions, so I always find Bannsider’s puzzles stimulating .  There were some excellent wordplay examples here – e.g. EGGS BENEDICT although I have some … Read more >>

A tough one today, I found, made even tougher by the relatively low number of checked squares. In fact, the grid looks like there might be a Nina, but I don’t see one. … Read more >>