Solving time: see below. Not at my best this morning having found myself in atypical solving circumstances with the mother and father of all head-colds, the continual interruption of my 24-hour blood-pressure monitor going off … Read more “Times 24936: No 14s today”
Month: August 2011
Times 24,935 Vanilla Flavour
Solving time 25 minutes As ever the pressure of writing the blog slowed solving a bit and I’m inclined to think this is just on the easy side of average. There is no strange vocabulary … Read more “Times 24,935 Vanilla Flavour”
Times 24934 – Jumping Jack Flash!
Solving time: 31 minutes Music: Chopin, Sonatas, Perahia I thought this was going to be a doodle, starting with the easy clues in the NW corner, but it turned out to have a few tricky … Read more “Times 24934 – Jumping Jack Flash!”
Sunday Times 4446 (14 Aug 2011)
Solving time: 37:38 with 1 mistake. A few new words for me – COLLOCATION, LAMBERT & VALETUDINARIAN. I failed to get LAMBERT, plumping instead for LAMBENT, but then a cryptic def for such an obscure … Read more “Sunday Times 4446 (14 Aug 2011)”
Mephisto 2659 – Tim Moorey
Hmmm, the interface for LiveJournal appears to have changed (I’ve just updated Firefox so that might be it too), so I hope this will work without too many headaches. Well after a run of a … Read more “Mephisto 2659 – Tim Moorey”
Saturday Times 24927 – (13th August)
Solving time 8:11, a rare sub-10 for me, even rarer on a Saturday. For a change I just parsed nearly every clue correctly at first look, and never really slowed down. Thinking back, I could … Read more “Saturday Times 24927 – (13th August)”
Times Jumbo 937
The last puzzle I blogged in this slot was notably difficult, but here the balance is redressed – my solving time of 19:49 was rather less than several normal daily puzzles since then, and (though … Read more “Times Jumbo 937”
Times 24932
Solving time: Squeaked in under the hour at 59:14 A few new words for me – HECATOMB & LLANERO, also DAUBE. Plus several entered without full understanding. I particularly struggled in the NE corner, but … Read more “Times 24932”
Times Crossword Championship 2011
Me again, confirming the location, which competitors should hear about again when they receive their finals details in about 10 days. Date: Saturday 22 October – presumably with the usual timetable starting off with registration … Read more “Times Crossword Championship 2011”
Times 24931 – A Challenging Stodge
Quite a fair Times puzzle although I found it a bit stodgy, judging by the times I have to resort to Wikipedia to confirm answers for obscure people, places and events. Challenging, yes but not … Read more “Times 24931 – A Challenging Stodge”