Lovely puzzle, not horrendously hard, see yesterday’s Donk in the Indy for that, my first Picaroon blog.
Independent 8712 / Phi
Phi now seems to be popping up on any day of the week rather than just a Friday, but he is very welcome at any time I really enjoyed the … Read more >>
Financial Times 14,728 by SAYANG
Nothing hard here.
Independent 8711 by Donk
*=anagram [] = removed e.g. char[m]=char ()=abbreviation e.g. A(mpere)=a Hom. = homophone This was a bit of a fiasco for me. I couldn’t get into the style of clues and gave up with … Read more >>
Guardian Quiptic 774/Nutmeg
Nutmeg is now a regular setter of the Guardian cryptic, but she’s not forgotten how to do the ‘easy’ stuff. I liked this one. Abbreviations cd cryptic definition … Read more >>
Guardian 26,365 by Rufus
The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26365.
Private Eye / Cyclops 529 Stuffed octopus
One of those solves where half the grid was filled on the first pass, and for a change there wasn’t anything hugely troubling at the end. The last couple took a bit of thought but … Read more >>
Beelzebub 1,279
All very smooth and pleasing this week. I didn’t get an uninterrupted session to work on this, but instead steadily picked away during the week, which actually worked quite well. I just had … Read more >>
Everyman 3544
Hello all, Struggling with internet access, so the following may be a little garbled. Apologies if it doesn’t make much sense. A pleasant enough puzzle, I thought, with at least one new usage … Read more >>
Independent on Sunday 1281 / Nitsy (7/9/14)
Nitsy only provides us with two or three puzzles each year and, looking back, I see that for the last five years there has always been one in September, though the previous ones … Read more >>
Azed 2205
We had a plain competition Azed this week where one of the clues was a simple definition that yielded an entry to be clued as part of the competition Bloggers over the … Read more >>
Guardian 26,358 / Puck
A very difficult prize crossword, but with all of Puck’s usual wit and ingenuity. The theme is ANTEATERs, and the word ANTEATER appears hidden in the centre of the grid: … if you … Read more >>
Independent 8704 by Nestor (Saturday Prize Puzzle 6 Sept 2014)
A third Nestor in a row on my watch … maybe the Indy editor has settled his contributors into a 5-weekly cycle that, coincidentally, matches our Saturday Prize blogging rota? Not that I’m complaining … Read more >>
Enigmatic Variations No. 1137: Endeavour by Shark
A tricky setter this week in the shape of Shark, with a couple of Listeners and a few EVs and Inquisitors under his belt. Here we had some extra words in clues which … Read more >>
Financial Times 14,725 by BRADMAN
A gentle offering this from Bradman – my best friend on a Friday. Relatively straightforward with very little left to chance. I needed help parsing 16ac and 18 ac but other that everything else went in pretty quickly. Thanks Bradman, for an apt conclusion to this week of relatively easy FT grids.