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Introducing "The Crossword and i"

This is a new blog documenting the crosswords and some of the other word puzzles in the daily i newspaper.  Each day from Monday to Saturday I'll be giving my thoughts on the Five-Clue Cryptic, Concise, Codeword and main Cryptic, along with any other puzzles I think are worth commenting on.  They'll probably appear by mid-afternoon, depending on my other commitments and on how tough the puzzles are that day. On Sundays, when the paper isn't published, I'll be going through some unsolved Cryptic puzzles, either ones I was unable to complete during the week, or older ones from my backlog (accumulated during February and March).  This week only, I'll be attempting Saturday's puzzle on Sunday because of lack of time today; in reserve I also have #3289 from last Monday, when I was away. There's not normally much to say about the Saturday Jumbo General Knowledge Crossword - either you know the answers or you don't - but if I have any comments I'll be incl...
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Tuesday 7 September 2021

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3366) I struggled with this one quite a bit.  After working out SCATTER for 2d I ground to a halt, and had to look up 6d (ROCKER) to get going again.  I eventually realized that 4d had to be LILAC, even though the wordplay doesn't seem to work properly; it's LLAC (= "ring" up, a Down clue) about I, so the word order seems to be wrong.  1d came next; STAR in MUD for MUSTARD (I'd been sidetracked by Abba!).  That left 3/5, which had to be PUBLIC UTILITY, although since the electricity companies have all been privatised, I'm not sure if the definition quite works.  It also uses "up" as a reversal indicator even though it's an Across clue.  Not one of my favourites.   Concise (#3366) Struggled with this as well!  The pun was quite clever (CREWS + AWAIT for "cruiserweight"), but I was slow getting several of the answers like CUPOLA, MUCUS and LEES.  TRAMMEL for "hinder" wasn't at all obvious, and I only work...
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Wednesday 1 September 2021

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3361) Polished off quickly, but much appreciated.  The main cryptic, being a four-year-old reprint, doesn't usually include topical references, but today we had two references to the time of year in 3/5 and 1d.  The cryptic definition in the former made me smile, and I thought 4d was cleverly put together as well.  Sometimes I think it's a shame that these clues don't get the level of attention given to the main puzzle. Concise (#3361) I fell into a trap with this one - not sure if it was intentional.  I wrote in HELTER SKELTER for 3d, which fitted the definition, and also fitted perfectly with the crossers at 8a, 10a, 19a and 21a.  However it left me with H?K?H for 1a (which looked like an Arabic word), I?T?S? for 12a and ?R?E?H?A?I?G for 15a, none of which suggested anything.  Fortunately the top-line pun came to my rescue - 1a had to be HIKER for "high commission" and I then realized my error.  Even then it took me a while to wor...
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