Everyman 3,954/24 July

Another pleasing and well-constructed puzzle from Everyman, with its now well-established trio of features: the rhyming couplet, the first letter clue and the self-reference. Abbreviations cd cryptic definition dd double definition cad clue … Read more >>

Everyman 3,953

One or two that I’m not quite sure about, but no doubt that is me and you will probably put me right. Otherwise this was a good illustration of what we all must hope The Everyman has become: sound clues, the right level of difficulty, and some nice wittiness.

Definitions underlined, in crimson. Link-words in green. Indicators (homophone, hidden, first letters, etc) in italics. Anagrams indicated like this: *(anagram) or (anagram)*

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Everyman 3,950/26 June

Another well-compiled and clearly-clued puzzle from Everyman this morning. I enjoyed it, and can imagine improving solvers will have as well. Abbreviations cd cryptic definition dd double definition cad clue as definition (xxxx)* … Read more >>

Everyman 3,949

Not a bad example of the new Everyman, with some quite good clues. My criticisms are more often of the ‘Well I wouldn’t do it that way if I was writing a clue for this word’ type than of the ‘This is quite appalling’ type.

Definitions underlined in crimson. Indicators (anagram, homophone, hidden etc.) in italics. Link-words in green.

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Everyman 3,946/29 May

Another well-constructed and accessible puzzle from Everyman, which I enjoyed solving and blogging. Abbreviations cd cryptic definition dd double definition cad clue as definition (xxxx)* anagram anagrind = anagram indicator [x] letter(s) removed … Read more >>

Everyman 3,945

A pleasant crossword from Everyman. There were several anagrams — no bad thing in a crossword that’s intended to be on the easy side, but some of the fodder was a bit tortuous and didn’t really lend itself to elegant surfaces. I often didn’t get them until I had plenty of crossers.

Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (for anagrams, homophones, first letters, reversals etc) in italics. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*. Link-words in green.

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Everyman 3,942/1 May

Another pleasing Sunday puzzle from Everyman. Since it’s primarily aimed at newer and improving solvers, I have tried to give full explanations of the parsing, but if there is anything that is not … Read more >>

Everyman 3,941

For much of this crossword I was thinking how pleasant it was, but towards the end some of the clues seemed to become rather tortuous. Who knows if I’ve actually got it right — I may be barking up the wrong tree — but there were some clues that I’m a bit doubtful about. Which will encourage the poster a few months ago to mention my crabbiness. Sorry — I’m hard to please!

Definitions underlined in crimson. Indicators (homophone, hiddem, anagram etc.) in italics. Link-words in green. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*.

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