Guardian 24959 – Paul

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Paul certainly knows how to make a theme exciting, right from 1Across to 22Down.  In between, he sprinkled his wit and humour liberally. Challenging in parts but mostly very very entertaining. Bravo, Paul, … Read more >>

Guardian 24,958 / Rufus

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The usual Rufus combination of cryptic [not too many] and double definitions and elegant and witty surfaces. Across 7   PHILATELY: PHI [anagram of HIP] + LATELY 8   QUICK: double definition [‘quick’ = ‘living’ … Read more >>

Independent 7304 by Hypnos

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*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def, sp=spoonerism I finished this fairly quickly, with only the NE corner giving me a few problems. There was an unusually high number of &lits, of … Read more >>

Beelzebub 1,046 (07/03/10)

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Blimey this was a tough one. That, plus most of the week spent at a conference means this week’s posting is a little late. *=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition. Across … Read more >>

Azed 1971

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The usual very satisfactory offering from Azed. I have learned not to look too far for wonderful surfaces, but to admire the faultless construction of his clues. Across 2 J ASS — one … Read more >>

Everyman 3310

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Well, I for one think this one was a bit more challenging than the last few that I’ve blogged. A couple of nice cryptic definitions, and some slightly more obscure words both as … Read more >>

Financial Times 13,332 / Sleuth

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Straightforward solve today with most answers entered on first pass through the clues. I had to look up a couple of wordplay components that involved people’s names, but this didn’t pose much difficulty. … Read more >>

Independent 7302/Phi

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An unusually large number of words that I hadn’t really heard of in the usual nice Phi offering. The pairs of four-letter answers at top R and bottom L suggest something, but I … Read more >>