Inquisitor

This gave us a good workout and a dialogue between Ba and me (Hi) eventually sorted everything out with one minor exception in 20A. We had three parts to consider according to the rubric. 1) … Read more >>

The preamble stated that ‘Solvers must fill the central cell and highlight it together with 12 others, so identifying a character whose first action provides the theme.  Each perimeter entry is a pair … Read more >>

Four clues have a misprint, and the rest have a redundant word. A jumble of the corrections to the misprints form a word that is thematically associated with eight unclued entries, and the … Read more >>

Phew what a workout! I just hope Schadenfreude derived a lot of “freude” from everyone’s’ “schade!” However, I got there in the end. Each answer had to be entered with one letter misprinted, though (as … Read more >>

We had to find a writer (1,4) and a work by him, with the first line in the top and bottom spaces and a mournful cry elsewhere in the diagram. The clues were … Read more >>

The preamble stated "the grid exhibits 90 degrees symmetry.  Clues are in conventional order.  One letter must be omitted from each answer before entry in the grid; definitions and letter-counts refer to the … Read more >>

Down answers are ‘affected’ before entry; Across clues are ‘affected’ before solving.  Either I got lucky, or this was easy (or both). Started with the down clues, as they are normal – solved … Read more >>

We have to find two quotes (from the same source) around the perimeter and then, cryptically, three down clues will combine to deliver the first. The allusion has to be completed by filling … Read more >>

A nice seasonal puzzle with some tricky cluing. I started at the top left (unusually) which turned out to be very helpful, as the most important theme word was at 1A. DA?E? led readily … Read more >>

The preamble stated "in every clue, the wordplay leads to the answer together with an extra letter not to be entered in the grid.  In clue order these give the first line of … Read more >>

Three unclued entries, some clashes, “thematically placed”. Clashes resolve to give an appropriate word reading down the grid. “Three similar words” (similar to what? each other?) “again thematically placed”, forming relevant shapes (16 … Read more >>

Inquisitor 1207 An unusually shaped grid this time. Also, it turns out, some of the bars and borders were missing from the published grid, which is a shame. On inspection, the grid is … Read more >>

I found this one – let’s not beat about the bush – very difficult. Without my laptop and Chambers on-line I would never have finished it! I have to say that the whole … Read more >>

The preamble told us that "solvers must fill in the central cell and highlight the poet and the poem in the completed grid (14 squares in total, in a logical order).  The perimeter … Read more >>

The rubric states that extra letters in the wordplay of down clues identify an achievement, one feature of which is symbolically represented in the grid, together with the full name of its creator. … Read more >>