Azed 1992
What you always get from Azed: apparently tortuous clues, but everything’s do-able so long as you persevere with all the wading through Chambers, because all the clueing is completely sound. Across 1 WIT-CRACKER … Read more >>
Never knowingly undersolved
What you always get from Azed: apparently tortuous clues, but everything’s do-able so long as you persevere with all the wading through Chambers, because all the clueing is completely sound. Across 1 WIT-CRACKER … Read more >>
This was one of those that went in very quickly indeed, but that I couldn’t quite finish unaided. In fact, if anyone got 15ac purely from the anagram then I’d be very impressed! … Read more >>
Solving time: 12 mins Pasquale is one of the most Ximenean of The Guardian’s setters (i.e. his clues generally make good cryptic sense) which usually means a fast solve. This wasn’t the case … Read more >>
Nother non-numerical Nestor novelty to nonplus us. In fact this was again not as hard as many a midweek puzzle, with firm wordplay once seen. Why do compilers end up picking words and … Read more >>
The full 225 letters this week (unusual for an EV recently?), so value for money from Kruger, and more to blog for your’s truly…but, to paraphrase from John Cleese’s ‘great actor’ in the … Read more >>
A nice puzzle from Phi to finish off the week. There was nothing too tricky here, but equally absolutely nothing to complain about, just a batch of very neat, very elegantly written clues. … Read more >>
A mix of simple and tricky clues, with uniformly clean surfaces. Specially enjoyed the devious definition in 19A. Across 1 GARLIC L (leaf) in (CIGAR)*. I’ve not seen leaf = L before but … Read more >>
Pretty easy-going stuff from Chifonie here, with several rather obvious anagrams to get started with. It was enjoyable enough, though with nothing much to grab the attention, except I thought the surface reading … Read more >>
My impression is that we haven’t seen Punk for a while and if so he makes a welcome return. Some of these clues are memorable, if one could remember them, and my only … Read more >>
A themed puzzle from Brendan today with a good mix of enjoyable, though not too demanding, clues. The theme was indicated by the middle row (15 & 17ac) and all the other across … Read more >>
That was then, this is now…perhaps Sleuth is feeling a tad nostalgic, what with the three separate wordplay elements (13A, 28A, 6D) harking to times past. Two major sticking points for me; firstly … Read more >>
Monday Prize Crossword on 26 July 2010 After the weekend excitement of John Henderson’s marriage to Jane Teather, complete with themed crosswords in all the major quality papers, Mudd’s week starter in the … Read more >>
Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of July 24 I was pleased with this typical and fine puzzle by Cinephile. I took a while over 10D and 15D, and I especially like 12A … Read more >>
A pretty tough week, I found. Despite the auspicious puzzle number, I don’t see any Hastings-related material here, but then I will tend to miss whole themes entirely. 19ac remains unexplained. *=anag, []=dropped, … Read more >>
I found this very much on the easy side, with quite a few clues solved on first run through, solving time 16 mins. Excellent as always. * = anagram 1 VIPERS ER re … Read more >>