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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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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Saturday 11 September 2021

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3370) A few quibbles in this one.  What's the meaning of GONE FOR A BURTON (3/5)?  I thought it meant "dead", or maybe "broken beyond repair" - not "lost" or "getting beaten" (one of which is intended as the anagram indicator, but I'm not sure which).  It was quite a good anagram though.   1d needed UB = "benefit"; presumably a reference to unemployment benefit, which was replaced by Jobseeker's Allowance in the 1990s (and the latter has itself largely been superseded by Universal Credit).  And 6d was one of those double homophone clues: "smell" = "reek", "cable" = "wire", and REQUIRE sounds (approximately) like "reek wire".  However "reek wire" doesn't mean "smell cable", so aren't two homophone indicators needed again?  I can't work out the conventions on this. Concise (#3370) FILL + LATTERLY = "philately", which...
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