Category: Monthly Club Special

In shock news, best crossword of the month continues to be best. I loved the surfaces of the brace of Presley clues at 20 and 21dn, and revelled in the audacious cryptic constructions and excellently … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,257: Blue Suede Clues”

A common, plaintive question about doing the MCS is “am I really supposed to be solving this without any aids?” and I would like to go out on a limb and answer that in the … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,256: 23ac Goo Goo”

Apologies for the somewhat delayed blog – this slipped through the net in the 19dn that was 2021’s NYE celebrations. The usual combination of excellent/unlikely-looking words and truly daredevil wordplay, needless to say I loved … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,255: Creme Brulzie”

Sometimes the agenda of an MCS is to throw as many truly absurd-looking words at us as possible – “THAT’S in the dictionary somewhere? REALLY?” but the order of the month this time was really … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,254: Pika Boo”

A lovely puzzle with some truly majestic nesting and plenty of cuckoo. 1ac and 17ac are particular favourites of mine, but it’s all good. WOD to 7dn. If you’re up before the beak, perhaps you … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,253: One Flew East, One Flew West”

This was enormous fun, enough answers that went more or less straight in (1ac, 18ac, 5dn, 17dn) to give a solid framework for tackling the puzzle, but then a panoply of clues requiring careful thought … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,252: There’s A Hole In My Golf Club Dear Liza Dear Liza”

I found this quite a beast to solve, but a very enjoyable one, full of literally incredible words from all around the globe. 18ac looks like a basic cluing error to me, unless anyone can … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,251: Slubberdegullions Need Not Apply”

The vocab is great (WOD 14dn, in the face of stiff competition) and the cluing delightful – I obviously liked the Trekker meta-spoonerism at 29ac, but COD to 23ac for its inspired marriage of Corrie … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,250: Beam Me Up”

Crikey, is the year half over already? On the plus side, that means that we have another MCS to enjoy. This was a good ‘un with some really great words and a couple of original … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,249: Friml Jinx It”

Another quality MCS with some finely-turned cluing, not a word wasted anywhere. I loved the guest appearances by L. Savage and C. Hodges, the fact that there were a few “normal-strength” clues in here to … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,248: Cute Rockney, All British”