Independent

No Phi today, maybe he’ll feature on Saturday  this week.    Instead what I found quite a tough puzzle from Morph esp SE corner.      I failed on 24 across, which I understand … Read more >>

Solving time: about 45 late night minutes Mass has usually been a very difficult setter for me – never quite sure why. I was going to say that this has a lot of … Read more >>

Apologies for the brevity/lateness here. Work Xmas party last night, so I solved this one with a belting hangover on the bus 2 hours late for work and am still playing catch-up. Good … Read more >>

Solving time, 18 mins * = anagram  < = reversed ACROSS 7 A L (L ERG) IST 9 ASS ET    silly (noun) 11 DEVONSHIRE CREAM  (over merchandise)* 12 PURL(O)IN 13 ILL EG AL(Capone) … Read more >>

As always Dac’s clues are simple and elegant and have lovely surfaces. Time after time the immediate reaction is to say how lucky he’s been that everything has fallen out so neatly. But … Read more >>

If I were to choose a title for this puzzle it would be “Bottoms Up” – partly for thematic reasons, but also because that’s how the answers fell in today. The bottom half … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism Reasonably challenging in parts with a good mixture of clue types. The clues were mostly solid rather than inspiring, although there were a few … Read more >>

An interesting one this. I only solved one or two clues on my first pass and had no idea what the theme might be. As the grid started to fill up, I spotted … Read more >>

This was certainly a fair bit tougher than Bannsider’s other recent Saturday puzzle. I quite quickly moved from trying to solve this unaided to treating it much as I would a barred weekend … Read more >>

Thursday is usually the toughest midweek day in the Indy.   This was hard, but not exceptionally so, 35 mins.    Top half easier than bottom half.   Very enjoyable puzzle with some intricate wordplay and … Read more >>

Pleasing puzzle as always, not too difficult, solving time, 18 mins * = anagram    < = reversed ACROSS 6 OP (little work) U (university) LENT (austere time)       Definition: rich 8 BA (TT IN) … Read more >>

I found this mostly quite straightforward, with lots of double definitions and simple charades. Still the final four took about as long as the rest put together. *=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, … Read more >>

Punk has clearly been very clever getting all those 13 24s in, but unfortunately I’m not the person to appreciate all his subtleties. Most of this seemed very good, but the odd one … Read more >>

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism Eimi indicated that this puzzle would be a little easier than last Monday’s Radian and so it proved. However, if I’d looked at the … Read more >>

I found this quite an easy puzzle, solving time 13 mins. * = anagram  < = reversed ACROSS 1 B (O OK) ENDS 6 P ARK 9 E (D WIN) A 10 AMOROUS     … Read more >>