Rusty's Puzzle Journal

This is a cryptic crossword I published on 1st April 2025, uploaded for posterity. Across 1. Chemist to sell iodine wrapped in gold (9) 6. Brief show (5) 9. Dish from Sacramento (5) 10. Playing a big blind and acting without a plan (2-7) 11. City’s trendy in the past (7) 12. Union regularly being written into some inheritance? It's perfectly legal! (7) 13. Man and woman enter station (6) 15. Wants some fondant-topped cakes (7) 18. Got to run inside small caverns (7) 20. Site of nut nucleus? (6) 24. Let silence be broken (7) 25. Punch a sailor over the waves (7) 27. Assembled the aristocracy accommodating large colony (9) 28. Hollow out 19 and fill it with a dip (5) 29. Seasons from Syria; Kenya returned them regularly (5) 30. Arrangement of collapsed new prebuilt (9) Down 1. Several entries may be within an example menu? (4 4) 2. Shark made siren rage (7) 3. Member of Ronin, Japanese warrior (5) 4. Lined up two gasses around a pair of metals (2 1 3) 5. Primarily holding See back, ...

Inspired by both the  List of Things  and a puzzle I wrote last year , this is a list of sets of letters. Entries in brackets are considered semi-canonical; they exist in some lists but aren't definitively in the set. Sets of Three RGB - Light colours XYZ - Cartesian axes TMO - Dash only Morse code BLT - Sandwich AZE - Isotope notation Sets of Four NESW - Cardinal directions UDLR - Orthogonal directions AJQK  - Playing cards CMYK - Printer inks SATB - Voice types ACGT - DNA nucleobases ACGU - RNA nucleobases WASD - Keyboard movement ABXY - Xbox controller buttons HJKL - Vim navigation buttons EISH - Dot only Morse code Sets of Five RNBQK (+P)  - Chess pieces ACGTU - Nucleobases PRNDL (+SB) - Automatic gearstick LITSO - Free tetrominoes AEIOU (+Y) - Vowels GJPQY - Descenders (lower case) ABCDF - US Letter grades DRABC - First Aid primary survey LGBTQ (+IA) - 🏳️‍🌈 Sets of Six UDSCTB  - Quark flavours UDLRFB - Faces of a Rubik's Cube ...

Here are some clues I wrote for a geography quiz in June 2020. Each refers to a city starting with the respective letter, and the second set is supposed to be easier/more obvious than the first. Map clues will follow in a second post. Clues I: A.        A statue in the market square depicts a giant who cut off boatmen's hands who didn't pay a toll. B.        The city's name is thought to derive from "wind-pounded city", and is nicknamed The City of Winds. C.        The city was thought to have been designed in the shape of a puma. D.        In September 2019, this city was named the least liveable city in the world. E.        The unsolved Lake Bodom murders took place in this city in 1960. F.         This city is noted for its Creole architecture and has Krio as its most widely spoken language. G.  ...

  Here are all the Chase questions I wrote in 2022 (with answers at the end): --------- Q226: Who was the first future US President to be born after the end of World War I? A. Richard Nixon B. Ronald Reagan C. George H. W. Bush Q227: The nine of diamonds playing card is sometimes known by which nickname? A. Scourge of Wales B. Curse of Scotland C. Blight of Ireland Q228: Something "cisalpine" is on the nearer side of the Alps to which capital city? A. Rome B. Paris C. Prague Q229: In nautical terms, a "mizzenmast" is located where on a ship? A. The front B. The middle C. The rear Q230: The French term for imitating English songs translates into English as "singing in...." what? A. Gravy B. Yoghurt C. Treacle Q231: Which of these is the name of a city in Turkey? A. Batman B. Hulk C. Wolverine Q232: The word "wiki" comes from the Hawaiian for what? A. Together B. Vast C. Quick Q233: What was the name of the tenant who lived next door to 10 Downing ...

 Day 25 - A Day of Celebration

  Day 24 - TBA