Solving time: about 7 mins I think, with one silly mistake (21dn). Mostly concisely clued with a few decent cryptic definitions. Double definition clues often seem to be my downfall (as in the recent Times … Read more “ST 4355 (Sun 15 Nov) – Desert storm”
Month: November 2009
50-50 by Phi – an occasional Listener plug
I don’t often mention the Listener puzzle, partly as there are other blogs about it, partly as I’m not currently a regular solver, and partly because of the prickliness of some Listener enthusiasts about any … Read more “50-50 by Phi – an occasional Listener plug”
Mephisto 2568 by Paul McKenna
If you have an opinion on the current level of difficulty and/or recent overall quality of Mephisto puzzles please take a moment to record it on this blog. This puzzle ranks with 2560 and 2564 … Read more “Mephisto 2568 by Paul McKenna”
Saturday Times 24383 (Nov 14th)
No time recorded last week, but I think it was around 20 minutes. I made a bit of a hash of 14D, putting in STAN at the end, which helped with 27 but not 20 … Read more “Saturday Times 24383 (Nov 14th)”
Jumbo 842
The usual Jumbo rubric: as the solution is available alongside (or indeed before) the blog, comment is confined only to references that might remain obscure to overseas / inexperienced solvers even with the answer visible, … Read more “Jumbo 842”
Access trouble today
I suspect jackkt’s report may start with “had to buy the paper today” – when I tried to get the puzzle about half an hour ago, the site was down. It was up about 15 … Read more “Access trouble today”
Times 24388 – Don’t Knock It
This was a very lively puzzle that gave me some real problems most of which were of my own making. In several places (1 dn second word for example) I thought of the right answer … Read more “Times 24388 – Don’t Knock It”
Times 24387 – Do, do, do the funky historian
Solving time : could not do this in one session. After about 15 minutes, had to put it down, get a few other errands done, and came back a few hours later, saw one or … Read more “Times 24387 – Do, do, do the funky historian”
Mephisto 2567: Tim Moorey
Sorry it took me a while to get some uninterrupted time to write up a blog , been travelling for work. But back home now, and two blogs to catch up on. Since I was … Read more “Mephisto 2567: Tim Moorey”
Times 24386
Solving time: 24:37 A real struggle this one, though maybe I was under the “blogger’s curse”. Apart from a pencilled-in VERB at the end of 17, 26A was my first answer. I then misunderstood the … Read more “Times 24386”