Observer

Azed 2027

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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 >>

Everyman 3366/April 3rd

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The usual pleasing puzzle from Everyman to accompany my Sunday morning.  A good variety of clue types, and for me today some exceptional surfaces: of the acrosses, I could point to 10, 13, … Read more >>

Azed 2026: Plain

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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 >>

Azed 2025/Carte Blanche

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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 >>

Everyman crossword No 3,364

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A typically entertaining puzzle from Everyman. Unusually for this setter, though, there’s one clue I can’t quite parse (see below). It’s probably my fault, so any suggestions welcome. Across 1 AVERSE A + … Read more >>

Azed 2024

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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 >>

Azed 2023

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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 >>

Everyman No 3,362

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And the envelope contains… Across 1. I’m so sexy in new lace undergarment (8) CAMISOLE Envelope (‘in’) of MISO, an anagram (‘sexy’) of ‘Im so’ in CALE, an anagram (‘new’) of ‘lace’. 5. … Read more >>

AZED No. 2,022 Plain

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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 >>

Azed 2021 plain

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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 >>

Everyman 3360/20 February 2011

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There has been discussion recently about Everyman getting a bit harder. This one was certainly accessible, but for me it just lacked a bit of the usual zing. Comment was made on the … Read more >>