Inquisitor

I found this pretty tricky and it took several hours over three days to complete. Some interesting words, two of which (ZARI and NIKAB) are only in the latest version of Chambers.  Google helped … Read more >>

The preamble told us that one letter or word must be removed from each clue before it can be solved.  In clue order the removals provide a quotation related to an event which … Read more >>

“Each clue yields a superfluous letter …” (alert: it might not be from the wordplay, but in the definition, or elsewhere?). These give a conundrum, three possible answers, and the initials of the … Read more >>

Inquisitor 1146 Another fairly complex preamble. In essence it says that twelve entries are not clued in the conventional way. Four of them are clued by single extra words in four clues. Further, … Read more >>

This was a fairly gentle Inquisitor (solved in under an hour) with a pleasant theme for solvers of my generation. Redundant letters provided by wordplay spelled out a “suggested title for a notional … Read more >>

Interesting theme and an entertaining solve. My first reaction was that there seemed an awful lot to keep track of in the extensive rubric! There were three types of clues, and four unclued … Read more >>

We were told that single extra letters in each clue’s wordplay spell out a quotation and its author.  Three illustrative examples (4), 36(8) and 40(8) are basic; three (9), (7) and (5) form … Read more >>

There are 13 definition-only answers, leading to thematic entries (“all reel [sic] words”).   The remaining clues each have an extra word, letters 1 & 3 of which spell a quotation; the author’s … Read more >>

The preamble tells us that redundancies have been made in 12 entries and their clues. My first thought was that we were probably looking for various standard crossword “workers” (bee, hand, ant, man, … Read more >>

This puzzle has an interesting preamble – “a significant minority of clues contain a misprint …” First thought is “What on Earth does that mean?” It could be anywhere between 1 and 16 … Read more >>

We were aked to identify a quotation round the perimeter which denied the existence of three unclued entries. Its source was indicated in the grid – clearly involving the barred off central square. … Read more >>

The preamble told us that in each column, one letter from the first answer is displaced to the top row of the grid, and one from the second answer to the bottom row, … Read more >>

I have to confess to being stumped by the final step of this puzzle. The instructions tell us that: “The ‘cryptogram’ formed by two normally clued entries should be highlighted and the relevant … Read more >>

Surely this is not the same Nimrod that was active on the Listener in the 1940’s?  This was pretty hard: clues in alphabetical order of answers, to be entered in the grid in … Read more >>

This was pretty much the opposite experience of the Raich puzzle with the World Cup theme. The thematic content was a ‘anagram and one letter change’ 7-letter word chain, the first and last … Read more >>