Monday Prize Crossword / Sep 18, 2017
For the second week in a row, Dante’s on the menu – with the same grid.
Mostly easy but …..
Financial Times 15,656 by Rosa Klebb
Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of September 16, 2017
Financial Times 15,665 by MONK
This is an anniversary milestone puzzle. Thank you Monk, congratulations and many more to come please! There is one clue I need help with. Any takers?
Independent 9,659 by Dac
Problems today with the fifteensquared site, which was down earlier, so I’m afraid this is a little late. However, you probably won’t be affected because you couldn’t get into it either.
As always Dac has given us an utterly pleasant puzzle. No great problems with it I think — even the slightly doubtful one at 3dn, where my suspicion is that Homer, or the two Homers, nodded, was really perfectly obvious. But then quite possibly they didn’t nod at all and I have missed something.
Definitions in maroon, underlined.
Guardian 27,313 / Chifonie
As with Rufus puzzles, it’s difficult to find anything new to say about Chifonie’s. They can usually be relied on to be straightforward, a medley of anagrams, charades and double definitions, all soundly … Read more >>
Inquisitor 1508: A Big Sell by Gila
We get a puzzle from Gila just over once a year, and I’ve blogged the two most recent ones. Preamble: Single extra letters generated by wordplay in across clues provide the first … Read more >>
Financial Times 15,664 by JASON
Good puzzle with flashes of wit.
Guardian Cryptic 27,312 by Philistine
I liked this a lot…
Independent 9658 / Maize
This our first blog of a Maize puzzle, and we hope it won’t be our last! We really enjoyed this – some original clueing and ‘interesting’ definitions, with a few relatively easy … Read more >>
Guardian 27,311 – Rufus
Typical Rufus fare for a Monday morning. Not much more to say, really… Thanks to Rufus. Across 1. STEP ON IT Hurry, if you want to use … Read more >>
Independent 9657/Tees
Tees in the Monday slot again, with a puzzle I found hard to get into, but which fell once I had a few clues in the top and bottom halves. There’s a wide … Read more >>
Guardian Quiptic 932/Moley
A fair enough Quiptic from Moley this morning, but I do wish the Guardian would stop using this grid. The large number of clues with less than 50% checking can be off-putting for … Read more >>
Everyman 3,701
The usual Everyman crossword, good surfaces, mostly easy-ish clues without the outrageous devices seen in some other papers.
AZED 2,362
Azed has been kind with the vocabulary this week, I did not spend nearly as much time inside Chambers as usual. A very enjoyable puzzle, thank you Azed.
Independent on Sunday 1,439 by Peter
The solutions are clear enough but one or two bits in the clues that I can’t explain away. Not the sort of thing you worry about or even notice as a solver, but as a blogger trying to explain each detail these things bother me. Thanks Peter.