i Cryptic Crossword 1422 Quixote

What better on a grey and damp looking Bank Holiday Monday than a breezy Quixote to start the day? Not much here that should have given many solvers pause, apart from 13d perhaps. Solving time, handily, as long as the rinse and spin cycle on the washing machine.

COD? 8d – ‘Penetrate well with difficulty getting right inside – hoping clothes will be this? (5-9)’.

The 2010 blog can be found here:

http://www.fifteensquared.net/2010/11/21/independent-on-sunday-1083-by-quixote-2/

Many thanks to Phil and Andy who provided links while I was sunning myself on a beach last week. Both have kindly volunteered to take up regular blogging duties. With Cornick carrying on with his regular Saturday blogs, and covering when I can’t blog, it gives us a nice bit of variety. Thanks all! If there’s anybody out there who feels the urge to have a go at blogging, do let me know.

i Prize Cryptic Crossword 1415 by Phi

Saturday 22nd August 2015

Phi as usual for a Saturday so tightly written, mostly very solvable clues.  Only really struggle was 18a – slighty ashamed to have put in ‘De Proquidus’ till I looked in the dictionary.  I only have a couple of dozen scraps of Latin in my head, Phi seems to use a couple of hundred phrases in his crosswords, so I’m getting used to feeling a bit dim by now.

Along with the fifteensquared comments here, I liked 21a and 12d.  The latter gets my COD.

12d  Hispanic subtitles for White House film (10)

Apologies for late blog, just back from Northumbria – highly recommended!

idothei is on holiday

Both myself and Cornick are away this week, so there won’t be any blog posts. Please feel free, though, to put links yourself to Fifteensquared in the comments. Happy solving! 🙂

i Prize Cryptic Crossword 1409 Phi

Posted on behalf of Cornick:

A relatively quick solve despite one or two decidedly esoteric answers.
By my calculation this puzzle was 63% made up of anagrams. Now I enjoy finding out that Aniston is an anagram of onanist as much as anyone, but if you put ‘Ottoman Empire, word limit 2’ into a search engine, it gives you ‘troop meantime’ in just under a second. Phi’s clue read ‘Troop meantime routed the Turks etc?’ and I’m left with a feeling that for this (and the clueing overall) he, well, he took it a bit easy.
Or more specifically, he put his creativity into the grid, which was ingenious – an array of paired words, all clued by anagrams of course!

COD: 14d. Composer. I fancy, accommodating start of composition – it affords close scrutiny (10)

Original blog from 2010 is here: http://www.fifteensquared.net/2010/11/04/independent-7505phi/

i Cryptic Crossword 1414 Glow-Worm

A fun, gentle puzzle to end the working week, half of which was solved while queuing at the petrol station. Nothing too controversial here, I think. Is Glow-Worm the new Dac?

COD? 18d – ‘Actors receive order to create turbulence – an ingredient of soaps! (6,3)’.

Here’s the 2010 blog:

http://www.fifteensquared.net/2010/10/25/independent-7496-by-glow-worm/

i Cryptic Crossword 1413 Mordred

Quite a tough offering from Mordred today, though one that was rewarding to solve. There’s a theme, apparently, around KOHL / COLE / COAL, not that I would ever have noticed…

COD? 15d – ‘Argentine conflict over English assets (10)’.

Back to October 2010, when no doubt the weather was better than it is this August.

http://www.fifteensquared.net/2010/10/11/independent-7484-by-mordred/

i Cryptic Crossword 1412 Dac

Another lovely puzzle from Dac. Smooth surfaces, no controversies, always fun to solve. My only complaint? Over too soon. I have another 3 hours to kill sitting in outpatients. 😀

COD? 14ac – ‘Lib-Dem and I clash (2,8)’.

Now, if I can get the WordPress app to work properly, you’ll find the 2010 blog here:

http://www.fifteensquared.net/2010/10/13/independent-7486-dac/

i Cryptic Crossword 1411 Hypnos

A game of two halves. The LHS was a nice enjoyable puzzle that fell reasonably easily, the RHS a bit of a nightmare that I found a bit of a grind. Oh well. Our theme was TV dramas, several of which I’d forgotten, including 8d which may explain some of my difficulties in that area of the grid. LT for LOOT = LIEUTENANT was rather unfair, I thought.

COD? 4ac – ‘Something put on board to be consumed in east of Provence? (8)’.

The 2010 blog can be found here, with an interesting comment by Mike Laws at @20.

http://www.fifteensquared.net/2010/10/18/independent-7490-by-hypnos/

i Cryptic Crossword 1410 Quixote

Well, I got stuck at the end on 17/18/22, as did Handel for a while back in 2010, so I wonder how many others did? 17ac I don’t think I would ever have got… Apart from those, and possibly 8d, this was our usual gentle start to the week.

COD? 3d – ‘I’m a gannet possibly – but consuming more than just fish! (3-6)’.

Here’s the Fifteensquared blog:

http://www.fifteensquared.net/2010/10/24/independent-on-sunday-1079-by-quixote-%E2%80%93-17th-october-2010/

i Prize Cryptic Crossword 1403 by Phi

Saturday 8th August 2015

This crossword took the biscuit, surely, for the most ghost-like of ghost themes ever. Even after being told there was a theme, no-one in the comments section of the Fifteensquared blog could see it, but dotted around the grid are ROBERTSON DAVIES and the three trilogies of novels he wrote: SALTERTON, DEPTFORD and CORNISH.  Did you spot that?  Me neither!

Good stuff as ever from Phi, with some fairly out-of-the-way place names that will either have helped or hindered depending on whether you knew them or not.

For 2010 Indy blog with answers click here.

COD : 6d/13ac Beholding turtles swimming round a place on the Devon coast (8,9)