The online version was a bit delayed today but it’s up now.
Month: February 2015
Guardian Quiptic 796/Orlando
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Orlando’s got the hang of this Quiptic stuff. A delightful little puzzle to …
Cyclops 540 — A load of Balls
Sorry for lateness again, folks — we didn’t realise quite how time-consuming and disruptive to work a puppy can be. A Cyclops …
Guardian 26,496 by Rufus
Pleasant Monday fun from Rufus – favourites were 13ac, 3dn and 5dn.
Independent on Sunday 1,303 by Poins
As always, a quality crossword from Poins, who must be thoroughly bored of me by now. Some quite challenging stuff in there …
Beelzebub 1301
This one took me a little longer than usual though progress was always steady apart from a slight hold-up towards the end …
AZED 2,227
As usual everything (with the possible exception of 25dn) is quite simple but very complicated since the words are so difficult. Hence many of these clues can be explained in one short statement.
Definitions underlined
Independent 8835 (Sat 7th Feb 2015) Jambazi
Jambazi (a.k.a. Tramp) is one of my favourite setters and one I’d like to see more of in both the Indy and …
Enigmatic Variations No.1159 – Offerings by Samson
I’m fond of these perimeter-quotation puzzles, although they can make things a little tricky if you can’t get a toe-hold in the centre of the puzzle. However, it’s not clear how much if any of the quotation will survive the dramatic cull proposed in the preamble (we are to delete almost three quarters of the grid once it’s been filled in).
Guardian Prize 26,489 by Imogen
I found this quite difficult, and for a while a bit frustrating.
Independent 8840 / Phi
Today we have what on the face of it is a fairly standard puzzle from Phi Well that’s …
Financial Times 14,854 by CHALMIE
A very enjoyable puzzle from CHALMIE this Friday. There were some devious twists and turns that extended the solving time by atleast 25% for me. A couple of clues also had me googling feverishly for checking the parsing but otherwise relatively unambiguous.
Guardian 26,494 by Qaos
Found this tough but fun, with 1ac, 11ac and 20/27 my favourites. Thanks Qaos.
Independent 8,839 by Monk
Rather a difficult Monk today I thought, but as usual very enjoyable. There are one or two loose ends which, thanks to the wisdom of those reading this blog, should be tied up before the end of the day.
And of course there’s the Nina, which I half saw and then forgot, to be reminded by Herb @1, who saw rather more than I did. The bottom row is a clear statement, so I looked at the top and couldn’t understand what was happening. All explained below. Very good. I can’t see why Herb thinks he hasn’t got it, for it clearly refers to the Russian novel.
Definitions underlined.