Independent 9,635 by Dac

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One of Dac’s typically smoothly-constructed crosswords. The usual good clues and nothing to take any sort of exception to.  I found most of this quite easy and then came to a halt on the quartet of 1ac, 9ac, 1dn. 3dn, failing to see the equivalence of a card game to cards, expecting the church bell’s noise to be a ring, thinking the female would be either f or a girl’s name, and expecting a bit of dope to be d.

Definitions in maroon, underlined.

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YORK S&B weekend 27-29th October 2017 – Update

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A message from John Henderson:

Here’s my end-of-summer update and request for details, slightly different to last year, but easier for everyone, I hope! Even if you have indicated attendance/accommodation details in the spring announcement, please would you give your A-E details in a post hereinunder.

Edit 25/10/17: Details of the Friday night ‘ale trail’ can be found here (map) and here (text).

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Guardian 27,288 – Pan

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Mostly very straightforward clueing from Pan (who is a recent addition to the cryptic slot, after many years of setting Quiptics), with only 7d causing me any difficulty in parsing. Pleasant enough, if … Read more >>

Financial Times 15640 Sleuth

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Thanks to Sleuth. Definitions are underlined in the clues. Across 1 Close to perfect, fantastically original element in a man’s suit? (9) TAILORING : Last letter of(Close to) “perfect” + anagram of(fantastically) ORIGINAL … Read more >>

AZED 2,358

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I always err in these Azed blogs on the side of giving rather too little information: anyone who is going to look at them will have a copy of Chambers to hand and will be able to understand the incredibly unusual words both in the answers and in the clues.  the actual parsing is usually fairly simple. Sometimes I forget the definition in the time between doing the puzzle and doing the blog, but once one has given the wordplay the definition is usually obvious.

But what about those people who are new to Azed solving and want to have the clues properly explained? Well to them I say get a copy of Chambers. And if the price puts you off, the version for the smartphone is a fraction of the price and so far as I can see contains basically the whole of the new edition.

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