Never knowingly undersolved
Last night’s gathering was thoroughly enjoyable. We had a few drinks at a pub in Charlotte Street before heading off to the world’s most crowded tapas restaurant, also in Charlotte Street. We were … Read more >>
I usually find Monk quite difficult but this wasn’t too tricky. I guessed the phrase that appears in the unchecked letters on the sides of the grid fairly early on so I filled … Read more >>
Solving time: 18 mins (Apologies for the late posting, a misunderstanding in an email to blame!) Wednesday is always a good Indy day, as Dac is a reliable source of a safe, sound … Read more >>
Tonight sees the first get-together of some of the contributors to Fifteensquared, Times for the Times and the new RTC Times2 blog, with a few setters thrown in for good measure. It’s the … Read more >>
For early birds, the online version of today’s puzzle provided the solver with a challenge – “Guess the Setter”. The setter’s name didn’t appear in the crossword heading, however it did appear in … Read more >>
Whether it was deliberate after the Bannsider debut yesterday, this was very straightforward. I’d everything, except one, solved in 12 mins, but that took me another 10 mins to get so solving time … Read more >>
A literary feast with clever use of grid geometry. I was helped by incidentally having a copy of “The New Yorker” next to me with the name JULIAN BARNES (1A, 4A) on the … Read more >>
Solving time: 43 minutes I rushed to the paper this morning to see who would be the author of today’s challenge and was surprised to spy a new name Bannsider. First thought is … Read more >>
I did the Times2 Concise today which is why “unfaulty” is on my mind. As per usual, I find Rufus’s style to be clean, with good surfaces and not very complicated wordplay. I … Read more >>
A leftover xmas clue (7D) and two new words. The nice thing about Everyman is that Chambers isn’t strictly necessary usually if you have the courage of your wordplay convictions: e.g. POCHARD and … Read more >>
Even before you’d filled in a single answer, you knew that there was something else going on in this puzzle: the plus signs in 2 across and 2 down clues, 8 more in … Read more >>
Solving time 13:30 Quite tricky this one – partly because of 22,11,12 which I didn’t get until many checking letters were in place – “C _ C _ / N _ _ _ … Read more >>
Solving Time: 19 minutes When you are under the weather, the last thing you need is a nasty ferocious puzzle to make you feel worse. Phi’s puzzle breezed in and contained lots of … Read more >>
An appropriately knotty puzzle that left me defeated by two clues, offers welcome. A good range of treatments, with several homophonic puns, a nice spoonerism and a punctutation mark as well as the … Read more >>
Top half much harder than bottom half for me, especially because the long phrase in 11 across was new to me. Solving time, 25 mins * = anagram ACROSS 1 IN CUB A … Read more >>