Never knowingly undersolved
According to the A-Z of Crosswords by Jonathan Crowther, Virgilius (in real-life) studied Maths at Cambridge and is an academic specializing in the “cultural and political aspects of mathematics education” so I suppose … Read more >>
I enjoyed this puzzle a lot, though it may not have been to everyone’s taste. My enjoyment of crosswords starts from the same kind of wordplay employed in puns, which often, though not … Read more >>
SOLVING TIME: 11 MINUTES Normal Monday fare, a gentle warm-up in the cryptic company of Rufus with the usual large quantity of Cryptic definitions and anagrams to encourage solvers. Ideal for the new … Read more >>
I’m feeling a bit “undone” myself at the moment – a fortnight into the smoking ban and thus a fortnight into my latest attempt to forego the evil weed. How can I possibly … Read more >>
Across 1 O,A,FISH,NESS – “o” is a short form of “of”. Good clue to get us going. 10 (ACTIONS IN A LAB IN)* – CANNIBALISATION has a few meanings, apart from the obvious … Read more >>
Back to Scotland again this week with Muriel SPARK. More than Everyman’s usual share of weak surfaces though: e.g. 9A, 2D, 5D, 17D. The rest are quite good though so perhaps this isn’t … Read more >>
Solving time: 10 mins, one mistake (14ac) I liked this, lots of inventive wordplay without being too complex or convoluted like some Guardian crosswords. * = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’. Across … Read more >>
Solving time: 20 mins < = reversal * = anagram ACROSS 5 STR (I P LIGHT) ING 8 SECOND S LIP 9 TR(O)Y 10 TE (A PART) Y YET< 12 A GREED … Read more >>
To my relief, on a day with multiple unexpected work deadlines to meet, this was one of Paul’s easier puzzles, and I polished it off reasonably quickly. Solving it depended on getting Truman … Read more >>
Some of you will have noticed that we haven’t had many of these lately. As I write this, I’m checking which of us are happy to write Azed reports. We already have enough … Read more >>
I thought this was a fantastic puzzle, maybe my favourite of the year so far. Not easy though – I got the first few across clues and one or two downs fairly quickly … Read more >>
I found this very straightforward and a quick solve but there were a few nice touches. Just a short review because most of the clues are reasonably self-explanatory but if anyone’s unsure of … Read more >>
I tore this one out of the paper, took it on holiday, and over-confidently left it until the day we were coming home. It turned out to be very tough – if our flight … Read more >>
Across 1. ANTENATAL CLINIC – cryptic def. issue=children 9. TH(e)ROW,IN 10. NUT,CASE 11. ELITE (hidden) 12. DEODORANT (too darned)* – good surface. 13. ETRUSCANS (runes cast)* 15. C,HAIR – ‘Hair’ is a musical … Read more >>
I think Quixote commented on this site some time ago that the aim was to keep the puzzle fairly easy, but that he would put a more difficult one in from time to … Read more >>