Category: Mephisto

As I’ve said before, I always like a Don Manley puzzle.   The clues are fair, and if you follow the rules you will be rewarded.   In the case of this puzzle, I was able to … Read more “Mephisto 3184 – Excuse me, Mr Blair…..”

Greetings barred-grid fans! Tricky workout from Paul McKenna this week – a few clues with multiple components and a 90-degree grid which led to some answers being fully-checked, but the 12-letter entries all having three … Read more “Mephisto 3183 – Paul McKenna”

This was not too terribly hard, and it was possible to look up a number of the answers with the starting letters.   However, Q-Boat was rather difficult, and required a dictionary search, since E-Boat and … Read more “Mephisto 3182 – No biffing, please!”

Greetings barred-grid fans. Since I have a busy weekend, I’m writing this up in advance, and may not be able to check comments on Sunday morning, so if I have messed anything up, check to … Read more “Mephisto 3181 – Don Manley”

I did solve this puzzle, but this involved a lot of not-very-inspired guessing.   Sitting down to write the blog, it looks like explaining some of the answers will provide considerable difficulty.   At least Paul’s pun … Read more “Mephisto 3180 – Whoa!”

Greetings barred-grid fans! I got through this one pretty readily, though there are a number of notes to myself about wordplay elements, I don’t have any question marks around the grid. The grid is notable … Read more “Mephisto 3179 – Tim Moorey”

I like Don Manley’s puzzles because they are so very precise.   If something seems wrong, it probably is, so you should think again.   I saw that curari was an alternate spelling of curare, and that … Read more “Mephisto 3178 – Back to square one”

Greetings barred-grid fans. Two of my greatest enjoyments in doing a Mephisto puzzle are the grid construction and the visits to the outer regions of Chambers, and this puzzle supplies plenty of both.  A generous … Read more “Mephisto 3177 – Paul McKenna”

This puzzle was a strange mixture of perfectly straightforward, quite simple clues with a few that were almost impossible.   I nearly managed to finish, but got stuck in the end, and had to phone a … Read more “Mephisto 3176 – The turning of the screw!”

Greetings, barred-grid fans. A fun puzzle this week from Don Manley, with the usual precise clueing of unusual words.  I thought it was interesting that the two long entries were both unusual words clued as … Read more “Mephisto 3175 – Don Manley”