Inquisitor

Anyone for tennis?  This puzzle was published on Ladies Finals Day at Wimbledon. We were told that 14 of the 44 clues contained a misprint with the correct letters spelling out the topical … Read more >>

This was a fairly gentle puzzle from Schadenfreude – the challenge was to idenitfy the empty cells where the cause and effect were to be entered, “thus thwarting an attempt to save the … Read more >>

We were told that the answers to five across clues had to be jumbled before entry. To complicate matters further, we were also told that the letters in these five answers would share … Read more >>

Easy to solve the grid (with some rather underwhelming clues), much harder to find the phrase made up of the extra letters. The phrase was almost irrelevant in terms of completing and sending … Read more >>

The clue is in the title, “Up, up and away” …in my beautiful balloon. A song probably known to many of my contemporaries as the music from the Nimble advert. Nimble was a … Read more >>

Excellent puzzle based on James Bond villains on the centenary of the birth of Ian Fleming, with some inventive and amusing clues. Once I’d twigged that we were looking at SCARAMANGA (which led … Read more >>

This puzzle was presented as a 10 row *11 columns jigsaw within a frame of 12 rows *13 columns such that the outer rim was independent of interlocking words. The central square in … Read more >>

 A nice twist in a crossword with conventional clues (no misprints, extra words etc. to muddy the waters). The puzzle was made more difficult by the fact that I found the clues in … Read more >>

I nearly didn’t finish this puzzle. I was a page turn from giving up despite having completed the grid. I had no idea what the theme was and with a couple of ambiguous … Read more >>

Solving time: about 2 hours This was a nice example of a fairly gentle thematic puzzle. Extra words in clues are a fairly simple way of providing thematic messages, but the idea of … Read more >>

This was a very enjoyable exercise in ‘thinking outside the box’. Solvers were told that by disregarding convention they would discover three words, and were told further that given the position of any … Read more >>

Solvers were told that nine answers represented a song sequence, in clue order, but with a different and much happier ending.  The preamble also stated that the first answer, representing the eventual target, … Read more >>

For a blog of the puzzle see Duncan’s comment below. Many thanks Duncan.

Solving time: ages! This was a classic example of the kind of themed puzzle for which solver A can spot the theme instantly and have the whole thing done in an hour or … Read more >>

What an excellent puzzle, almost ruined by poor proof reading!  Editor please note!! First the moans: Wrong word length for 1A – to be consistent with the other clues with unchecked blanks it should … Read more >>