Taking a break...

 My last few posts have only had one or two views, so I'm putting this blog on hold for now.  I may return once I've worked out how I can get people to read it!

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Wednesday 8 September 2021

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3367) Just right today!  GDANSK was my favourite. Concise (#3367) Also just right.  HOLE + SAILOR for "wholesaler" was the pun.  Codeword (#3045) G, H and V given.  Very little to say about this either, but I enjoyed it. Cryptic by Dutch (#3303) Link to idothei (blogged by Borodin) Link to Fifteensquared (July 2017, blogged by RatjokaRiku)   Apart from one clue, solved in about my average time.  I'd agree with Borodin, the new blogger on idothei, who gave it three stars.  Favourite clue was maybe 13d for the clever way it split up the phrase; other contenders were the anagrams at 15a and 11d, and the hidden at 22d.  Sadly, I had to resort to Crossword Solver for 3d, where I should really have spotted the anagram; also for 8d, where I was misled into thinking that "store" was the definition. I didn't like 9a for two reasons; firstly it can hardly be said to be a dictionary phrase, and secondly it's surely two homophones rather...
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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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Thursday 9 September 2021

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3368) "Males do get drunk repetitively; that's nothing new" (4,3,4,3).  Answer: SAME OLD SAME OLD. This would be a worthy winner of Clue of the Day if it were in the main puzzle: but it goes uncommented on at idothei, as they don't concern themselves with the Five-Clue.  Shame really!  The other clues were all pretty good as well, although I didn't know FED = "G-man" and had to fill in 2d partly by guesswork. Concise (#3368) The three-word puns are usually even more painful than the two-word ones.  I had CAT and OLD but couldn't get the middle word for "evade" for some time, thinking it must be SKIVE; CAT-SHIRK-OLD eventually revealed itself as "catch a cold", but it took a certain amount of straining.  Other clues that held me up were 11a, BESIEGE (I had DELIMIT until getting 5d) and 10a, which I didn't know at all; Crossword Solver led me to BOUGAINVILLEA, "any of several South American ornamental wo...
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