Azed

With apologies for the late posting. I found this one to be at the easy end of the Azed spectrum, though I needed Chambers to confirm a few answers. I do, however, have … Read more >>

A rather incomplete effort since I’m travelling sans Chambers and only have an hour in between flights.  So… most of the bottom-right is undone and there are several wordplays left behind. All fixed … Read more >>

The usual utterly sound and satisfactory puzzle from Azed. Across 1 FIREPLUG — discharging = fire, bolt = gulp, which reversed is plug. A fireplug is a hydrant: one is misled by the … Read more >>

I finished about three-quarters of this quite quickly and without aids, but finishing it off was a bit more of a struggle. As usual I had to do quite a lot of Chambers-trawling … Read more >>

Nick:  Nice AZED this week, which I rate 7/10 on the ‘AZED hardness’ scale. Some novel cluing going on, e.g. 12ac and 23dn. My last in was 20ac, which took me a while to … Read more >>

After a few minutes in which simply nothing occurred to me, the puzzle suddenly yielded and I was able to complete it reasonably rapidly, although only with the help of Chambers.  As always, … Read more >>

An Azed of mixed difficulty this week — I managed most of it on a train, but needed the help of Chambers for some of the more obscure words. Across 1 CRAB-YAWS Skin … Read more >>

I tend to enjoy empty grids in the Carte Blanche style — it makes me think I’m doing something more than just “mindlessly” solving clues.  In this case, I got lucky guessing that 1A and … Read more >>

As always of course, a very good crossword from Azed. Some of the clues (1ac and 1dn particularly) are marvellous and everything is sound and well-signposted. My solving performance is rather feeble: I … Read more >>

Another reasonably straightforward Azed, as far as I remember, helped by an easy 1 across to get me started, though as usual a fair bit of Chambers-trawling was needed to confirm all the … Read more >>

Nick:  A fairly easy stroll for an Azed this week. 18dn was the last in, as the instruction ‘The Chambers Dictionary (2008) is recommended‘ always steers me in the wrong direction when proper nouns … Read more >>

I found this very hard, partly because I had never heard of either of the two 13 letter anagrams at 15 and 29 across.  There were several other obscure words and I will … Read more >>

A rather more tricky Azed than some recent ones, largely because it has more than the usual quota of obscure words. I needed to check quite a few answers. The first answer refers … Read more >>

Appropriately enough, very much a tale of two halves for me. But in my case the top and the bottom: 1A came quickly enough and thus the top half. I stared at the … Read more >>

Azed’s Plains are usually done at one sitting, even though that sitting can be very long indeed. This time. however, there were several clues that gave me trouble, both in getting them in … Read more >>