Author: Merlin

As Columbus said when he raised the telescope to his blind eye, “I See no Nina”.  

Back on the hard ones again, or I wasn’t on the wavelength and was barking up the wrong tree several times.

For me it was Chestnuts 3 NHOs 2, after Extra Time.

Four thirteen letter words underpin the grid, get these quickly and you are well on your way, I didn’t, so 12:25.

My Solving time (12:46) was much faster than the post-solve unpacking for this blog.

Some great surfaces here, I don’t usually read surfaces much, as I am too busy trying to decrypt them. 1A for example is a perfectly natural English phrase.

Some obscurities held me up here, I should imagine a few solvers mouthing a word of prayer before pressing submit.

17:23, some tricky parsings today, but a fair offering, on the hard end of the spectrum in my opinion.

Great series of surfaces in this puzzle from Oink, and after unaccountably missing his signature move last time out, today a porcine clue awaits.

Slow going for me due to a confident but wrong entry for one of the long clues.