Never knowingly undersolved
Stunning puzzle with lots of elements from Lato. First the rubric: long and complex but, once understood, entirly fair and correct. We had eight clues with two consecutive redundant words which clued “pairs”. … Read more >>
A very welcome appearance from Tees with a very enjoyable puzzle, much of it centred around 21A. There are some excellent clues in here, the political-themed anagram at 11/9 being a particular highlight. … Read more >>
An enjoyable puzzle with some surprising twists and turns. 21 down was the last to fall, but there were plenty of clues with micely misleading wordplay. In particular, I liked the way the … Read more >>
One gets the feeling that the Don may well have a sadistic streak when he acted like Procrustes, stretching the legs of innocent travellers on the rack and actually chopping up the good … Read more >>
I had the great pleasure to meet Orlando a few months ago. If you haven’t already seen his “Best for Puzzles” site then it is well worth a look, especially for the comprehensive … Read more >>
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism A fairly gentle start to the week from Hypnos. There were lots of nice clues with 10 being my favourite. 4 down was also … Read more >>
Another very easy Rufus, though I had to check a couple of defintions (12ac and 6dn). I thought some of the double definitions were a bit weak, but there were some nice anagram … Read more >>
Another unaided solve this week, although I admittedly made a couple of slips which I was later able to correct by checking Chambers. *=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition. Across 1 … Read more >>
Lorraine This week I had trouble with the north east corner, possibly due to over indulgence at Christmas and New Year, got there in the end though. Favourite clues 11ac, 16ac, 20ac, 3dn, … Read more >>
An Azed of average difficulty — most answers were pretty straighforward to work out from the wordplay, but I needed Chambers to check that some of the words really existed. Skelder, fratch and … Read more >>
We have had a plethora of Azed Specials recently, caused no doubt by things occurring at inconvenient times: first we has TWO THOUSAND, which was in effect the October competition and celebrated Azed’s … Read more >>
I hope I have got the serial number right here, for the puzzle published on 2 January. Because I don’t like writing on newsprint (sorry!), I scanned it in and printed it onto … Read more >>
So its Boxing day and the only one of the three (Inquisitor/Listener/EV) to be published this Christmas week. Sounds like a Christmas theme which promises to provide the solver with GOOD CHEER. Each … Read more >>
Something a little bit different from Phi here, to mark New Year’s Day. This week’s puzzle has a preamble, which tells us: Seven answers are suitably modified before entry to reflect the season. … Read more >>
My first blog for Fifteenquared. This being the New Year prize puzzle I was expecting an Araucaria special, but we have a plain puzzle instead. As always with Araucaria I started slowly, but … Read more >>