Never knowingly undersolved
Quite a challenge in places, with some nice clues. I found fault with a bit, as explained in the blog, but these were small criticisms and overall it was enjoyable.
All indicators (anagram, hidden, homophone, deletion, reversal etc) in italics. Definitions inderlined.
Azed has me “stumped”
A minor delay with the late arrival of the PDF on the Guardian website, and then this turned out to be quite a tricky puzzle, with quite a lot of unfamiliar words. As … Read more >>
The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/everyman/3876. A couple of unusual parsings and some byways of general knowledge made this perhaps more difficult than many an Everyman. ACROSS 1 PENCIL-PUSHERS Clerks, chipper unless … Read more >>
The Observer crossword from Jan 17, 2021 A fine crossword that we enjoyed just a bit more than the one from the week before. Everyman’s puzzles may somewhat vary in difficulty and tightness … Read more >>
My weekly guided tour through the dictionary. Thank you Azed.
The Everyman is a puzzle that is meant to be easy-end, and tractable enough for newish or less experienced solvers. This particular example was a step – or several steps – too far … Read more >>
An uncontroversial (I think) plain Azed this week. There are a couple of hard to classify clues at 16 and 29 and (particularly) 30 across, but otherwise the usual mix of common and … Read more >>
The Everyman used to be excellent. Then its setter retired and it went through a short period of being rather unsatisfactory. Now it seems to be returning to its previous standard — harder, … Read more >>
A plain competition puzzle from Azed this week This was a week where I solved more clues on the first pass through than I usually do. We had the usual … Read more >>
A very pleasing selection of unusual words, with one fiendish clue and one rather puzzling one. Thank you Azed. ACROSS 1 SLANTINGWAYS Way t’ inn glass is swirled round obliquely (12) anagram (is … Read more >>
The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/everyman/3872. When this blog comes out, we will be in the New Year, so let us hope for something a little better (can’t get much worse). Everyman, … Read more >>
Azed’s Christmas special… … I wasn’t sure, even with two weeks to solve this, that I was going to complete this puzzle (and I’m not 100% sure I have done – see 11 … Read more >>
The Observer crossword from Dec 20, 2020 Everyman in a festive mood – food and drink aplenty! I counted 14 clues with a ‘culinary’ surface. Apart from the four long ones around the … Read more >>
I found this puzzle unsatisfactory on the whole, mainly because of some dubious definitions and unclear wordplay. Your experience may have differed. Abbreviations cd cryptic definition dd double definition cad … Read more >>