Author: richardvg

Solving time : 13:10 with one mistake I don’t know why I was happy with ASSAIL for 11A. I assumed I would discover that SSA was a disease (like SARS and MRSA). But the definition … Read more “23519 – defeated by bovine spongiform encephalitis”

Solving time : 13:54 Israelis, Czech, Latvian, Turkey and Anglais appear in answers. Not to mention the Nova Scotian (mis)described as an islander. I could complain that indicating “totty” as “attractive women” in 22A is … Read more “23513 – Mixed nationalities”

Solving time : 15:24 A very enjoyable crossword. Clever surfaces (eg 1A, 1D, 14) and mainly economic cluing – by my counting only ten of the clues have linkwords. I don’t object to linkwords, but … Read more “23507 – parse mildly livid”

Solving time : 9:52 Apologies if my review seems a bit liverish. Last night was excellent fun, and my head is suffering slightly this morning from the beer, Rioja and puzzles. I have a suspicion … Read more “23501 – 9A”

Solving time : 14:07  Felt like hard work this morning, though no individual clue is especially obscure.  Not so many cultural allusions as usual, but English Lit references all the way from Shakespeare to Andy … Read more “23495 – Hard cheese”

Solving time : 8:27 As usual, I entered quite a few words (including 10, 14 and 24 across and 3 and 13 down) quickly without having worked out the wordplay. (One of the good things … Read more “23489 – guesswork”

Solving time : 8:42 Each letter of the alphabet appears at least twice in the grid, giving some interesting words to clue – I enjoyed the howitzer and the sasquatch. Also the occasional well-worn word, … Read more “23,483 – Mix-ups cut no ice”

Solving time : 13:11 I entered two words wrongly, but managed to recover them. Last word solved PERRON, of which I have never heard. Lots of fun clues today, but also a number of clues … Read more “23478: what about flight lieutenant?”

Solving time : 13:45 I solved this in an anti-clockwise direction, rushing down the left hand side, filling in the bottom half, then gradually working up the right to finish with 4D (gasoline), which took … Read more “23472: clever stuff”

Solving time : 11:27 Lots of interesting words in an almost pangrammatic grid. I suppose “bicycle quip” is not a common phrase. I am not very good at sporting references, but for some reason there … Read more “23466: no cricket, no queue”