Times Quick Cryptic 570
This one took me exactly 10 minutes. Looking back at my solving times it seems I had a problem with Flamande's puzzles in the early days of the Quickie in 2014 when they took me regularly over the 15...
View ArticleTimes 26413 – A Nice Mosaic
What an enjoyable puzzle with which to start the working week! Not particularly difficult, but a satisfying challenge, in the main, with a pleasing mix of clue types and subject matter.It will be...
View ArticleTimes Cryptic 26414
I needed a minute or two over an hour for this but I'm not sure why as there are no obscure words or references. As mentioned in my Quickie blog yesterday, I am indebted to mohn2 for a new method of...
View ArticleQuick Cryptic 571 by Tracy
A mix of easy and less than easy clues here led to an enjoyable 13 minute solve - quite some time of which was spent in the NW. It contains some long definitions which can be confusing but satisfying...
View ArticleQuick Cryptic 572 by Grumpy
An enjoyable offering from Grumpy which I thought was just about right for a QC - nothing obscure, a few splashes of wit and it kept you on your toes throughout.As usual, definitions underlined: DD =...
View ArticleTimes 220170 - from 1970, in lieu of TCC Qualifier No. 2 today
After the puzzle from 1963 which appeared while TCC Qualifier No. 1 was published, I wasn't too dismayed to see this one dated 1970 rather than some impenetrable pre-war offering. It's a bit of a TLS...
View ArticleTimes 26416. When is an orange not a paper-pusher?
Solving time : 8:23, so either this one was on the beginner's slopes, or I was really on the setter's wavelength, or both. It didn't hurt that I'd seen almost the exact same clue that was at 9 across...
View ArticleQuick cryptic No 573 by Teazel
This took me 13 minutes, three more than my target, for no easily accountable reason.There are a couple of pieces of Brit-centric general knowledge (10 and 23 across, 20 down) and more than the usual...
View ArticleTLS Crossword 1123 by Broteas - April 29, 2016
Back to plain vanilla here after Verlaine's lavishly illustrated tales from Shakespeare last week. It was a relief to learn from the Club Forum that others found this tough. It was a whiplash-inducing...
View ArticleQuick Crossword 574 by Orpheus
An enjoyable crossword and clear clues. Nougettes sounded like a possibility for 11a - misled into thinking nutty was an anagram indicator, and yes, I know, that still doesn’t work! – but everything...
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Times 26,416: Sir Topham The Morning To You
Smarting from ulaca's quip that, based on my performances earlier this week, I am the John Aldridge of crosswords (with my limited knowledge of sports I'm not sure who that is, to be honest - perhaps...
View ArticleSaturday Times 26412 (14th May)
Much tougher than the previous week - solved on paper in about 20 mins. Looked like it was going to be a pangram as I was solving it, but there was no Y or Z. Very good puzzle, apart from the slight...
View ArticleMephisto 2907 - Don Manley
Fun breezy offering this week, I thought. Contains one of my favorite words to misspell at 1 down (always forget the second A), and every barred-grid solver's favorite rock at 10 across.My only real...
View ArticleSunday Times 4694 by Jeff Pearce
13:06. A reasonably gentle puzzle from Jeff this week. There were a couple of unknowns for me (GYRFALCON, WINGDING), an unusual abbreviation for a rather obscure unit of length, and one slightly...
View ArticleJUMBO 1206
I didn’t find this one particularly difficult but there did seem to be a lot of unusual words and several examples of the dreaded long single word answer. When we played hangman at school if anyone...
View ArticleQuick Cryptic 575 by Marty
Only Marty's eighth Quicky offering by my reckoning, and I found this one quite tricky - though part of that was because I managed to put in a wrong answer for 10A that made my LOI 2D impossible....
View ArticleTimes 26419 - What the Pry Mincer waves?
Solving time: 12 minutesMusic: Beethoven, Symphony #3, Jochum/LSONow here's a Monday offering. My time was a personal best, as I madly biffed without hesitation, resulting in a completed grid before...
View ArticleTimes Cryptic 26420
It's not often I have two consecutive solves under 30 minutes, so 19 minutes yesterday and 29 today make a promising start to the week to compensate for Sunday's ordeal. I've nothing to say about this...
View ArticleQuick Cryptic 576 by Mara
This is a very clever, good fun crossword - thank you Mara for clever clueing - lovely surfaces and cunning anagram indicators. I should have spent more time enjoying it but quick, quick very, very...
View ArticleQuick Cryptic Number 577 by Izetti
I made a slow start to this, not seeming to get a hold anywhere despite one or two easy starters. Came to a grinding halt in the SE corner and took longer than usual to fill the last few squares. As...
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