If you enjoy solving the clues on this site, you might like to try cryptic crosswords.

There are lots of these online (many newspapers publish them), but not all are free to use. So here are our favourites among those which we believe are free:

The Guardian (select the Cryptic option for weekdays, Prize for Saturdays, Everyman on Sundays. If you want a real challenge, try the Azed). Print, solve online or with an app

The Independent (select the Cryptic option) Online or print

Financial Times Print out – there’s an option at the bottom of the crossword graphic

As we say, there are plenty of other options including The Times (London), the New York Times, the Telegraph (in the UK) and many more.

Let us know your favourites, and we’ll include them in our list

In the next few days we’ll be asking you to agree to accept a few more cookies on the site. This is for three main reasons:

1. We are very aware that you currently have to complete all the clues in one session. If you close the page on your browser, you lose your progress. So we will be storing information about how many of today’s clues you have completed in a cookie, so that you can revisit the page (on the same browser on the same device or PC) later in the day, and have your previous work retained. These cookies are simple affairs, and will not contain personal details or tracking.
   
2. We will probably start putting ads on the site. It takes a little bit of time and money to maintain a site like this, and one of recouping that cost – which costs you, the user, nothing – is to display ads. We will spend time and effort on making sure that the ads we display are relevant to the people who use the site. Those ads may require cookies.
   
3. Regarding the above, we will also in the future begin to offer membership of the site. This will allow your progress, not just on a particular day, but over the course of days/months/years to be retained and celebrated. There will probably be points on offer, story lines and new challenges for members – as well as other features. And, yes, you will be able to get rid of the ads (and gain extra content, we hope) if you move to a paid membership. But that’s in the distant future. Again, this will require cookies.

So it’s with a little apology that we will be introducing these cookies. However, we are sure that the services and functionality they bring to the site will outweigh that feeling of being watched by The Cookie Monster. You will, of course, have control over these cookies on your machine via the new interface which will appear.

If you have comments, please feel free to use the contact form on the home page to pass them on to us. We would love to hear from you.

* A chef is a ‘cook’; that is = “i.e.”; + the start of ‘some’. Cookies (which is the solution) are biscuits…

Cryptic Word Puzzles is coming soon.

In the meantime head to http://cryptanasia.com for the current version of this site.