Inquisitor

After a day with very little in the grid but the bottom right hand corner, I was beginning to fear that this was the one I couldn’t finish (blogger’s nightmare!). I had a … Read more >>

Seeing that it’s a Nimrod puzzle often strikes fear into the heart of a blogger       We had a fairly short preamble this time.  It stated: Clued by their initial letters, … Read more >>

Ploy is an infrequent setter in the Inquisitor series although he has been in the setting stable since 2007 when he set Puzzle no 2.  This is the eighth Inquisitor set by Ploy..  The … Read more >>

I recall that Radler‘s previous puzzle about collective nouns involved a lot of cold-solving, and to cap it all I highlighted the wrong cells in the grid to form SKEIN. Let’s see what … Read more >>

Work by Schadenfreude Single letters to be removed from 38 clues before solving (always leaving real words) spell a quotation with one word missing and its originator. Solvers must reveal the missing word … Read more >>

A difficult one from Nutmeg this week, especially if poetry isn’t really your thing. So much to keep track of and so much cold solving to do if you didn’t know the perimeter … Read more >>

We get a puzzle from Gila just over once a year, and I’ve blogged the two most recent ones.   Preamble: Single extra letters generated by wordplay in across clues provide the first … Read more >>

Shift Work II: Confessions by Ifor A song title suggests how one letter in each across answer must be treated before entry. All down clues must be modified before solving according to part … Read more >>

This was a fun puzzle from Encota       The preamble stated that "to mark an anniversary, two relevant thematic words must fill the unclued shaded areas.  All instances of one character associated … Read more >>

The rubric read: Thirty-two clues contain a letter that must be removed before solving. In clue order, these letters indicate (i) a modification that should be applied to the answers to nine normal … Read more >>

Somehow, a few weeks ago, I’d picked up on the fact that a puzzle from Phi would be my next one to blog.   Preamble: Five across clues and five down clues each … Read more >>

Obeying a Rule by Eclogue Preamble: Every clue is OBEYING A RULE whereby each definition, in whole or in part, is disguised by a one word anagram containing an extra letter. In clue … Read more >>

Hard but fair is my normal estimate of Schadenfreude’s puzzles.  The rubric read: One letter must be removed from the answers to 16 clues and the residue used to form a word for grid … Read more >>

Kruger tells us in the preamble to his puzzle that sixteen clues contain a redundant word.  The first letters of these give a well-known title which (ignoring the significance of apostrophes) describes how … Read more >>

With some trepidation I embark on this sesquimillennial puzzle, set by Schadenfreude, Phi, Ifor, Nimrod & Kruger.   Preamble: To reveal the theme, solvers must highlight 35 cells which are not provided by … Read more >>