Azed

Plenty of familiar words in here for me, but I didn’t find it much easier than the obscure offerings. Thank you Azed. ACROSS 1 CHLORDAN Something to zap bugs after hospital peer kept … Read more >>

A very straightforward plain Azed this week, after the previous week’s Carte Blanche. A puzzle whose references span from Greek mythology to Radio 4. As always, I learned something from my explorations into … Read more >>

A carte blanche puzzle for us this week       Sometimes Carte Blanche puzzles require a lot of cold solving before the grid starts to fit together, but this one fell into … Read more >>

Not as many obscure word as usual, which made this a quicker solve than normal. Very enjoyable regardless, thank you Azed. I will be away much of the day, leave a comment and … Read more >>

I finished the puzzle, but there are a few unparsed. Cards on the table – I printed the puzzle off last Sunday and left it sitting beside the printer until Saturday evening, thus … Read more >>

I was close to giving this up as unfinished, thanks to a mistaken entry at 29a, but managed to recover. The time I spent on that has rather obscured my memory of the … Read more >>

I found this at the trickier end of Azed’s plain puzzles. No complaints about that from me, the enjoyment lasted longer than usual. Thank you Azed. ACROSS 1 MASTERSWITCH Controller of all power … Read more >>

A grid with an unusual feature for this month’s competition puzzle. The unusual feature is to be seen at 5 and 27 down, where we have five letter words with full checking. Another … Read more >>

A plain puzzle from Azed this week       The grid contains the usual collection of less common words clued very precisely. I liked the linked clues at 29 and 31 down … Read more >>

Special instruction here, but the puzzle is not very far removed from a standard cryptic. Thank you Azed. As is often the case with Azed specials the instructions are long and detailed but … Read more >>

One of Azed’s easier puzzles. By Azed standards, this was quite straightforward. I judge difficulty of barred crosswords by how far I get before I have to resort to dictionaries. In this case, … Read more >>

Quite a tricky one this week I thought, with a lot of unfamiliar words in both answers and wordplay. Everything worked out soundly in the end, of course, with just a slight niggle … Read more >>

Another helping of interesting words and carefully constructed clues. Thank you Azed. I will be away on a short cycling tour over the weekend. If you have any corrections/questions then leave a comment … Read more >>

A plain puzzle with what almost amounts to a mini-theme. Unusually for Azed, not only is there one solution (16 ac) referred to in another clue (34 ac) but also another solution (14 … Read more >>

A slightly differently shaped Azed grid this week with 11 rows and 13 columns       There were few Scottish references in the puzzle although TRON got a look-in at the wordplay … Read more >>