Never knowingly undersolved
The usual Azed solve: excellent sound clueing and a large number of words that you never knew existed. Across 1 BEWITCH — the competition clue-word 7 ASTI{r} 10 ATHAPASCAN — (Apach{e} Satan)* although … Read more >>
Monk’s puzzles are always challenging and inventive, and this was no exception. I honestly want to be able to enjoy them, as he seems like an awfully nice chap, but for me this … Read more >>
A short preamble instructs solvers to consider ‘SENTRY DUTIES’ in ‘thematically treating’ 12 answers before entry, to create new words. So far so good. But then we are told: ‘How the remaining answers … Read more >>
As it was a bank holiday weekend I was really looking forward to another Araucaria special, but sadly it was not to be. This offering was enjoyable enough, though took up rather less … Read more >>
We apologise for the late appearance of this blog. This was due to the wrong person having to write it. We were told in the preamble that this was ‘An anniversary puzzle’ and … Read more >>
It took me quite a while to make any headway at all on this one, but once I’d got in the swing it eventually yielded with just the right amount of struggle. There’s … Read more >>
This was a puzzle that made me think I would struggle. The theme is not one of my strong points, but it was probably the most obscure example that I … Read more >>
Enjoyable crossword with lots of nice surfaces and a clever little theme. Favourite clues: 2,21,22, 14 and 24. Across 9 TREACHERY =”infidelity” (Terry)* around ACHE=”desire” 10 NAMES =”Calls” rev(SE[a]MAN)=”sailor”, with an ‘a’=”one” docked … Read more >>
Always a privilege to blog a landmark: 14,000 is not only a nice round number, it’s also almost exactly half of Don Bradman’s career first-class run total… So the cricket mini-theme is appropriate, … Read more >>
I didn’t enjoy this. The two long phrases were hardly known to me, certainly one of them at any rate, and I couldn’t find either of them in Chambers. Which isn’t to say that … Read more >>
Monday Prize Crossword/Apr 30 Another charmer by Crux, a compiler who is high on my List B of Favourite Setters [B only referring to the grade of difficulty] because of (a) the splendid … Read more >>
Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of April 28, 2012 Here is another cracking Cincinnus sporting a repeated clue with different answers (20A and 27A), an outstanding anagram in 22A (BY ALL MEANS), … Read more >>
I have not seen Loroso before, so it was nice to get something new. Not too difficult, but elegant. I liked his clueing style, no stray words or dodgy definitions here. Hold the … Read more >>
Excellent surface readings as usual in this enjoyable puzzle from Dac. As avid filmgoers, we thought 15d read extremely well (even though we are not fans of the Rocky films!) as there really … Read more >>
I put this mostly at the easier end of the spectrum, but none the less pleasing for that; but in reviewing the writeup, I see that I found quite a number of the answers required special comment or explanatory link .