Observer

A fairly typical experience — one or two very nice clues, one or two I can’t understand, and quite a lot of working things out from the wordplay and saying “well perhaps it’s … Read more >>

Apologies for the delay.  i had been waiting for someone to put me wise on formatting, but I haven’t heard anything back. This was quite a tough challenge and took me about four … Read more >>

Solving time: about 70 minutes in 3 bursts, with Chambers used for last 15 or so answers. Some of this was pretty straightforward, but I was held up a long time by 17/23 … Read more >>

There seems to have been a bit of confusion on the blog scheduling front, with Azed 1911 not having been covered. In the interests of completeness I’ve taken the liberty of producing this … Read more >>

I found this mostly a little below average difficulty, but I think there’s an ambiguity in 1ac and a mistake in the wordplay of 13ac. This is the first Azed where the recommended … Read more >>

Solving time : a few hours, but it took me longer than it might have done because of a misprint in the pdf, whereby the clue for 23 down appeared as the clue … Read more >>

Better late than never, I hope. This was an Azed I could not have done without a dictionary, with several words I didn’t know, and a few unusual senses; but that’s the fun … Read more >>

I solved this with the help of a Google friend (Howard Trickey — thanks!).   Unlike a typical Listener, we cracked the theme well before solving all the clues (with the help of … Read more >>

A fairly standard Azed, I think.  Lots of words of which I’d never heard, fairly predictable and verified in Chambers, and as usual a very well-constructed grid, with words of many lengths (except that … Read more >>

Apologies for the late publication of this blog. I’m a last minute substitute and pressure of work prevented me from filing it yesterday as I had intended. The puzzle itself was an elegant … Read more >>

Another moderately difficult Azed. I’ve been struck down with a horrible cold over the last coouple of days so haven’t ben able to write a very full blog: I’ve shown the basics of … Read more >>

A moderately difficult Azed, which I somehow found more of a slog and less of a pleasure than usual, though as always it’s scrupulously fair and there are some excellent clues. Key: dd … Read more >>

A relatively easy Azed for me this time around. That means I did it easily in one evening after dinner, I suspect Peter B could have polished this one off within 30 minutes. … Read more >>

A straightforward puzzle this week, with a fair proportion of unfamiliar words.  Nevertheless, it’s worth making the point that Azed puzzles can in fact be easier to solve than a daily cryptic, as … Read more >>

A bit of a treat this week — the most challenging Azed for a while. For those who have not tried this kind of puzzle before, the first step in fitting the answers … Read more >>