Category: Monthly Club Special

As usual the best crossword of the month, whatever Horryd may think! Some gorgeous clues in here, of which I think my favourites were 13ac (certainly took me the longest to decipher) and 24ac. But … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,244: The Art of Falling Apart”

Very hard indeed, but very good indeed, and quite an education in obscure currencies from all around the globe. COD to the ingenious Italianate stylings of 4ac, but I also very much liked À LA … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,243: Strange Currencies”

I thought this was hard but most entertaining – 15ac being worth the price of admission all on its won. I also very much liked 22ac, an audacious word to try to clue at all, … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,242: Christmas Comes Early”

Another great MCS with a fine smorgasbord of unusual words clued with equally rare wit and verve. I loved the devices at 26ac, 4dn, 5dn, 16dn: these puzzles are such a great breeding ground for … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,241: As Easy As 12ac?”

A quick look at the completed grid for this one should be enough to tell you if you are going to love or hate the Monthly Club Special: some people just won’t want to painstakingly … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,240: Pooh Dreams”

Yes, to a certain extent this grid is just one of those MCS exercises in maximising the silly-letter quotient of each answer (worth fewer than 10 points in a game of Scrabble? You can just … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,239: Nuke The Scrabble Tile Factory From Orbit, It’s The Only Way To Be Sure”

Once again the most perfectly constructed puzzle of the Club month, with some truly ridiculous words that you’d never believe could be wrangled into yielding such splendid and audacious surfaces, balanced out with plenty of … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,238: A 13ac Cluesack Writes”

Once again the best cryptic workout of the month, because biffability has been all but subtracted from the equation – if you could readily define more than half a dozen of these words without resort … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,237: I Fought Scots Law, And Scots Law Won”

I found this quite hard work overall, despite a fair proportion of straightforward clues in the mix: there were a few real stinkers to balance them out, of which LOI 12dn was the ringleader. COD … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,236: Oh Stewardess? I Speak 24D”

I thought this puzzle made for a strong counterargument against those who think that the MCS is an unnecessary exercise in wilful difficulty and obscurity. Yes, there was a handful of Scots dialect, and a … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,235: A Stroll In The Woods”