Crossword Help Forum
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druh6sm
Eberyman used tonbe very easy years ago, but when one of the setters retired, the newest one has set the crossword as a little tricker. We are always here to help you

please excuse typos 😒

I appreciate that.

Quite demoralising!

druh6sm
do you do the online guardian quiptic? that's (usually!) suitable for learning how to solve.

https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords

Yes I do. Very occasionally I do ok.

I do every guardian crossword I can; invariably they are far too tricky for me.

We all had to learn. Sometimes I felt like giving up but then you start to recognise ‘devices’ that the setters use and certain words, within the clues, immediately trigger a train of thought (which can sometimes be a mis-direction). The best way is to solve what you can then look at the completed solution to see how the other clues led to the answers. There’s a forum for the daily Guardian puzzles which explains each answer. Have a look at fifteensquared dot net. Good luck

I'm not up with this numbers=letters thing, it is lazy and boring IMHO.Managed this OK except I had never heard of 6d and 4a I haven't heard this century.

I agree with simond9x, a few years back I didn't know half the tricks used

This forum and fifteensquared has helped immensely

Can’t parse 18a - can see it is there, but can’t work out what points to removing the spurious “n”. Is “detailed” a particular device?

detailed - end letter removed from L***