What a delightful display of verbal and linguistic acrobatics in today’s puzzle. Some of the clues are deliberately misleading and even convoluted but extremely fair. A very good morning’s entertainment. ACROSS1 LEAVE Foliage = LEAVES … Read more “Times 24799 – Verbal Acrobatics”
Month: March 2011
Times 24798 — Standing outside oneself
Solving time: 9 minutes As the time suggests, a quite easy puzzle today. I was happy to see the clock stopping before double figures clicked over. (A very rare event I should add.) RESTHARROW was … Read more “Times 24798 — Standing outside oneself”
Times 24,797
20:42 on the Club timer. An enjoyable puzzle, I thought, with plenty to chew over. Across 1 FIRST HAND – FIR + (H in STAND). 6 WEBER – WEB + E.R. Carl Maria von Weber: … Read more “Times 24,797”
Times 24796 – Ginger & Fred by the seaside
Solving Time: 45 minutes Not a stinker, but a thorough workout for my besieged little brain on a Monday. 6ac went in almost immediately and then nothing but a tentative MAT? for several very long … Read more “Times 24796 – Ginger & Fred by the seaside”
Mephisto 2636 by Paul McKenna
A fun puzzle that manages to get Buzz Aldrin, Marilyn Munroe and Calvin Klein tittupping together, so to speak, with a Pearly and a bottle of port. It’s not often one gets to write sentences … Read more “Mephisto 2636 by Paul McKenna”
Sunday Times 4423 (6 Mar 2011)
Solving time: I didn’t quite finish in my alloted half-hour, but the two I had left (6/7) fell pretty quickly when I picked it up again a bit later on, so I’ll say about 32 … Read more “Sunday Times 4423 (6 Mar 2011)”
Saturday Times 24789 (5th March)
Solving time 16:33. A very mixed bag consisting of a lot of very easy clues interspersed with some very hard ones with tortuous wordplay or obscure vocabulary. Still, there was a bit of science in … Read more “Saturday Times 24789 (5th March)”
Jumbo 913
A steady solve, with a couple of unfamiliar words and a couple of bits of General Knowledge required. I did not time this one. Across 1 FLIP ONES LID – FLIP = pert, ONE = … Read more “Jumbo 913”
24794 – Marie’s the name…
This took me 31 minutes which is pretty good by my standards so I doubt it will have detained the speed-merchants for too long. I scanned through the first five or six clues both Down … Read more “24794 – Marie’s the name…”
Times 24786, 1st Qualifier, 2011 Championships (2nd March)
Solving time: 21 minutes. Not a difficult puzzle, though I had some hold-ups in the NW. Of note is the inclusion of three homophone clues; none of which should be controversial. The answer to 17 … Read more “Times 24786, 1st Qualifier, 2011 Championships (2nd March)”