Category: Monthly Club Special

Simply a virtuoso puzzle and I’m only sorry that this proved such a busy month that I never found time to sit down and give it the many hours of sweet tortuous agony that I … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,217: The Gory Locks Zone”

Another “let’s see how many truly ridiculous words we can pack into one grid” type puzzle, with the crossing pair at 26ac and 14dn giving me particular cause to chortle. FOI 10ac (once I decided … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,216: Hoarse Beans and 20ac Bears”

ACROSS1 Palms demitasse’s held in (4)ITAS – hidden in {dem}ITAS{se} 4 Disgusted comments about shortage of tennis equipment and ancient cover for horse (10)SHABRACQUE – BAHS [disgusted comments] reversed + RACQUE{t} [“shortage of” tennis equipment] … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,215: Won Ton Soup”

A tough puzzle even by Monthly Club standards I thought, involving not just the usual pangrammatic vocab from all four corners of the club, but also some unusually inventive cryptic devices (my hat is off … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,214: Well *I* Didn’t Find This 28ac”

A real vocab-fest this month, taking in Antipodean and American slang, Indonesian medicine, a heated Chinese sleeping platform, a Japanese hostelry, an Indian water porter, an African mountain and that glorious German mouthful, a synonym … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,213: Around The World In 29 Clues”

There are some Club Monthlies whose sole agenda seems to be to use as many of the “fun” letters of the alphabet as possible, and this puzzle seems to be firmly in that school. COENZYME … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,212: XKCD Got Nothing On Me”

Let us first address the loxodont in the room: there was a lot, and I mean a lot of obscure natural history in this puzzle. If you are the kind of person who can see … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,211 (1/4/2014): Isn’t Nature Wonderful”

A sad DNF from me on this one – the entire top row being way too sporty for my blood, I failed to register the full import of “hitting canvas” in 1ac and though TAKENOMA … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,210: When Irish Clues Are Smiling”

For some reason there was 50 minutes plus on the clock already when I started this one, which was good really as it meant any sense of time pressure was off and I could just … Read more “Monthly Club Special No 20209: Return of the Pregnancy Frogs”

Greetings all, the appearance of a new Club Special reminds me that I need to post up a blog of the last one. This puzzle is a curious beast (I find): the wordplay is scrupulously … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,208: Explosion in the Scrabble Tile Factory!”