Times Quick Cryptic 1071 by Pedro.
Spoiler alert. If you’d prefer to solve the grid with no thematic hint then please press the reveal button only after completion.Thank you, Pedro, for this well appreciated reminder of the wit and...
View ArticleTimes Cryptic 27014
I needed 67 minutes for this one and found it very hard.As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators...
View ArticleQuick Cryptic 1072 by Teazel
Breezed through most of this enjoyable puzzle from Teazel until I was left with the 18a / 19d pairing at the end, which took me an age to work out. (Well, once 18a was finally cracked then 19d really...
View ArticleTimes 230365 - when sausages had taste and puzzles had orchises.
The first qualifier puzzle for the 2018 TCC is published today, so this puzzle from yesteryear* appears in the online section instead. (I'll blog the qualifier after the closing date for entries). I...
View ArticleTimes 27016 - we'll do our best
Solving time: 14:27. Probably should have been a lot faster but I was held up by a few crafty definitions. Definitions so crafty that I suspect this will not be a puzzle for the biffers.The early...
View ArticleTimes Quick Cryptic No 1073 by Hurley
Some meaty and harder to spot anagrams in this offering from Hurley. My brain must be tuned to potential anagrams, because I see them even when they aren’t there, which can waste a lot of time. For...
View ArticleTimes 27,017: Mission to Minsk
That archival puzzle on Wednesday may have been a blessing in disguise, if it put us in the right frame of mind for today's, which I thought had a definite and not unpleasing old-school feel. I didn't...
View ArticleQuick Cryptic 1074 by Felix
6 minutes without any major challenges. A good demonstration of the art of the Double definition, some of which (11ac, 3dn) had me thinking. I wonder if the setter is mourning the news that there will...
View ArticleTimes Cryptic No 27012 - Saturday, 14 April 2018. A walk in the park?
This was a straightforward exercise, although in several cases I had to stop and think twice about well-disguised definitions. Finished in under 30 minutes, so I expect some fast times from the...
View ArticleTimes Cryptic Jumbo No 1317 - 7th April
Hello all! I found this on the easy side of middle-of-the-road - mostly pretty straightforward, but with one or two tasty nuggets. I liked the 21-letter anagram at 13a and the novel anagrind at 15a...
View ArticleSunday Times 4794 by Dean Mayer
14:51. I didn’t find this particularly difficult but I enjoyed it immensely. Lots of witty and consummately elegant clues, as we have come to expect from Dean. It’s always hard to pick a favourite,...
View ArticleMephisto 3007 - Don Manley
Very strange to see two variations of the same word in the one puzzle, and I was wondering if there was a theme forming from this, but I couldn't see anything else. I thought this was rather a fun...
View ArticleTimes 27019 - The rhythm of fate, or the helpless lion
Time: 24 minutesMusic: Coltrane, Giant StepsAfter failing to complete either the Saturday, or the Sunday, or the Guardian Prize, I thought that I was either slipping, or these puzzles were damned hard....
View ArticleQC 1075 by Orpheus - Comic Strip?
This is going to be a quick 'in and out' for me this week as I have a very full day (and week) ahead.It was not a difficult puzzle for me, although I found only a minority of answers going in on my...
View ArticleTimes Quick Cryptic 1076 by Tracy
I can’t remember such a fast start to the week - two 7 minute solves in a row.Today wasn’t plain sailing though - FOI 6ac and LOI 9ac showing how much I had to jump about the grid. A crucial checking...
View ArticleTimes Cryptic 27020
I needed 46 minutes to complete the grid. Much of it was straightforward enough but there were a few unknowns along the way and these slowed me down. As usual definitions are underlined in bold...
View ArticleQuick Cryptic 1077 by Flamande
A touch harder than the previous puzzles this week, but not by too much. I was slowed down by the Hampshire town and the Russian house (but not the noisy party or wine from castile… honest).A belated...
View ArticleTimes 27021 - not Dante, the chap with the Idyll.
Another cracking Wednesday job, not too easy but not too difficult or too spiced with obscurities. 4d got me on the ice and I'd finished the RHS in good time. The LHS proved more intractable but fell...
View ArticleTimes Cryptic No 27022 26th April 2018. Out of Date, Out of Mind?
Yesterdays was a cracking example of a puzzle in which the difficulty was created not by the arcane vocabulary but by the devilry and misdirection of the cluing. Today’s cluing is a lot more...
View ArticleTimes Quick Cryptic No 1078 by Mara
Tricky enough one today, I found, taking me nearly four minutes over my target ten - as a comparison, I did yesterday's immediately before this and came in two minutes under. Not my finest performance:...
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