Tag Archives: solution

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned theme crosswords that were about to appear in the Australian Financial Review. The first one included an Australian “Christmas carol”, How to Make Gravy by Paul Kelly, and included the artist, song and … Continue reading →

The concept of “double duty” is an easy one to understand: part or parts of a cryptic clue have more than one role, that is, to be truely technically correct the double duty element(s) would have to be repeated for … Continue reading →

Over the years I’ve written just about every kind of crossword you can imagine, from the 3-minute, heavily-interlocked quick to the Y2K monster history puzzle that contained at least one clue for each year of the preceding century. Every puzzle … Continue reading →

Solvers of my puzzles will know that I rarely do theme crosswords, however they are almost mandatory for the Christmas and New Year period running up to Australia Day. The Australian Financial Review (AFR) publishes bumper editions where I write … Continue reading →

If you read this blurb regularly you’ll know that I do a weekly search using google.com.au to see if anything is happening with cryptic crosswords in Australia. The actual search I do is “cryptic crosswords -youplay -lovatts”. The search will … Continue reading →

Last week I mentioned the ellipsis, which is the intentional omission of certain words based on assumptions made due to the context of the conversation or language. For a really good explanation of how ellipsis is used in normal English, … Continue reading →

Do you ever come across something in cryptics that seems wrong or not quite right, but, as it is published in a newspaper and doesn’t get criticised, you assume it’s not an error, instead that you are missing something? For … Continue reading →

How often have you tried a crossword by a setter you’ve never solved before? If you solve the UK dailies regularly, then new setters pop up occasionally and they, in most cases, will conform to house rules, making their crossword … Continue reading →

I was clearing up my study recently and came across some original AFR cryptics that I kept as mementos back in 1995, over 20 years ago. Looking through the clues was a strange experience as not many would make the … Continue reading →

What exactly is a setter’s responsibility when it comes to what definitions, words, terms and meanings they use in cryptic clues? Should a setter pay any attention to how difficult a clue and ultimately a crossword is made by using … Continue reading →