Never knowingly undersolved
I found this mostly not to hard on the Azed scale, though a few clues held me up at the end, especially the crossing pair 30a and 22d. I have a couple of … Read more >>
Pleasant crossword from Azed this week. I didn’t think it was all that difficult by the usual standards, but would have appreciated a bit more guidance for words that are not in Chambers.
Solvers of The Observer’s Azed crossword, both regular and occasional, are invited to a special lunch to celebrate puzzle No. 2,750 at Wolfson College, Oxford on Saturday 3rd May, followed by afternoon tea at Azed’s Oxford home. For full details please email heald (dot) richard (at) gmail.com.
A 13 x 11 grid this week, but no 13-letter words.
We have a plain puzzle from Azed this week
Some of the clues in this week’s Azed felt a bit quirkier than usual. I think that I have provided a fair parsing for everything, but I look forward to any further elucidation that might be forthcoming in the comments.
Sorry this blog's a few hours later than normal.
Several Azed bloggers, myself included, have commented that the appearance of a Playfair puzzle is a scary prospect, as it involved both cold-solving the italicised clues, and deducing the codeword from the answers and the crossing letters.
The Azed Christmas puzzle has a stated closing date of 29th December. This is unusual in two ways: first by being a Sunday, and secondly by not giving an extra week, as is … Read more >>
A pleasant but not a terribly demanding Azed before the trials of next week’s Christmas competition. There are unusually several mistakes, which makes one feel that he’d have benefited from an editor, who could have noticed them. But who’d be Azed’s editor? What he says goes, and it’s amazing that for well over 50 years every week we’ve had a nice crossword with very few mistakes. I shall be surprised if next week we find any, even though it will no doubt be highly complicated.
Definitions in crimson, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
Another straightforward plain puzzle from Azed this week.
It’s competition week for Azed, but it’s just a plain puzzle. No doubt there will be complex puzzles around Christmas and New Year. I found this more difficult than many … Read more >>
Apart from a couple of quibbles and one exceptionally clever clue, this solve was mostly straightforward.
A fairly straightforward Azed.
Thanks to Azed for another quality puzzle. Across 1 GRAITH Scottish dress (old-fashioned) one kept in sanctuary once (6)A (one) in GRITH (sanctuary) 7 YACCA Evergreen causing hard grind for Aussie by … Read more >>