TLS Crossword 1169 by Praxiteles - March 31, 2017: Letters from a Citizen of...
A fun puzzle that made me feel suitably erudite throughout with its copious references to all sorts of interesting things long archived away in the dusty attics of the mind. There are a number of clues...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Times 26,705: Turtle Recall
Coming straight from a TLS puzzle as I did, I was clearly in the right headspace for this crossword: I instantly knew Sairey Gamp's signature item and likewise all the classical militaria was well...
View ArticleTimes Saturday 26700 - April 15, 2017. See you in Ibiza?
This crossword had a lot of delicious clues. 16dn was an absolute delight! The more obscure answers were all gettable from the wordplay. And happily, no flora, no fauna. A very satisfying crossword....
View ArticleJumbo 1258
I completed this correctly, but there are a couple of clues where I am unsure of the correct interpretation (6D and 12D) although I can make some sort of sense of themThere are also others (13A, 18A,...
View ArticleSunday Times 4742 by Jeff Pearce
This took me a little under 10 minutes, so from my perspective at least it wasn’t a difficult puzzle. But that is no bad thing, and I really enjoyed solving this one. It’s mostly impeccably clued and...
View ArticleMephisto 2955 - Paul McKenna
Apologies for the late post - I'm in a new play, Prairie Fire, by Ryan Madden (a local playwright) and it has been taking up a significant chunk of time, especially Saturday afternoons when I would...
View ArticleQuick Cryptic 815 by Teazel
A puzzle of mid-range difficulty from Teazel to ease us into the new week, with some nice surfaces and little in the way of strange vocab or devilish constructions. I make this Teazel's 75th Quicky...
View ArticleTimes 26707 - Hopes and Fears
Solving time: 26 minutesMusic: David Bowie, LowI did this puzzle in good time, but I think perhaps less-skilled solvers may find it a little tough. It is full of references that are slightly off the...
View ArticleQuick Cryptic 816 by Flamande
The crossings of 17ac, 3dn and 18dn caused delay in this otherwise fairly straightforward yet very entertaining puzzle. I'm currently unsure about the parsing of 'm' in 17ac - but hope it'll become...
View ArticleTimes 26708 - "I'm a substitute....
Solving time: 32 minutesMusic: Art Bears: Hopes and FearsI got through this one fairly quickly until the very end, and then became thoroughly stuck. The three that did me in were the...
View ArticleQuick Cryptic 817 by Orpheus
Apologies for the sparse blog. I find myself without a computer this week, posting on an iPad and in plain text. Plenty of easy starters in all corners make the longer answers solvable; a great...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Times 26,709: Taking Down Particulars
I'm standing in for pipkirby today so I'll keep things short and sweet. I did this funny and ingenious puzzle on paper, in 9 minutes and 18 seconds according to stopwatch, so by no means a walk in the...
View ArticleTimes Cryptic 26710 - April 27, 2017 Unaccented, but with a fair bit of stress
Initial results (including mine, breaking the 30 minute mark) suggest that this innocuous little number might be bamboozling everyone except George, at least a bit. My holdups were mostly in the lower...
View ArticleTimes Quick Cryptic No 818 by Tracy
A shade harder than average, I'd say, taking me 15 minutes (with one wrong). A couple of bits of obscurity, for me anyway, with 17d and 22ac going in with a shrug: the first I've no doubt seen before...
View ArticleTimes 26703 - 1st Championship Qualifier (Wednesday 19 April)
I managed this on paper in 16 minutes, with one Russian poet half-guessed as the more likely arrangement of the anagram letters; the rest was straightforward although required the usual crossword...
View ArticleClub Monthly 20199 April 2017
I found this easier than last month's, round about medium difficulty I would say, though with a couple of quite tricky ones thrown in. And as high class and enjoyable as ever.Dictionaries: The Club...
View ArticleTLS Crossword 1170 by Myrtilus - April 7, 2017. Knock knock. Who's there?
A captivating piece of whimsy with the now classic Myrtilus touch. I printed this to look at in the car driving up to the country for the first time this season while I was sitting in the back with...
View ArticleQuick Cryptic 819 by Des
I think this was the easiest one of the week but, as usual, your mileage may vary. My time was 5:05 and to be honest, I can't find much to comment on. There's the usual array of anagrams, hiddens and...
View ArticleTimes 26711 - was this tough or was I below par?
Just back from a tiring and somewhat socially excessive golf trip, in unseasonably cold and wet Catalonia, I found this quite tough in places; it took me the bones of 45 minutes to get through it...
View ArticleTimes Saturday 26706 - April 22, 2017. Simply elegant.
Lots of delightful cluing this week. Great breadth of answers, geographic, culinary, classical, arts and more. Some clever single and double nested answers, and some nice misdirection. Even the dreaded...
View Article