49 minutes for this very entertaining puzzle with a good mix of easy and more complicated clues and one or two moderately obscure references. As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions are in … Read more “Times Cryptic 26780”
Month: July 2017
Time Quick Cryptic 876 by Tracy
Working through the word play of some clues it seemed that easier ways to get there had been missed in favour of rather more devious ones. Having said this I’m sure biffers will have biffed … Read more “Time Quick Cryptic 876 by Tracy”
Times 26779 – Time to walk, time to run….
Time: 22 minutes Music: Berlioz, Harold in Italy, Davis/Menuhin/LSO. Despite my good time, I found parts of this puzzle rather inexplicable. Some of the cryptics are very obscure, and give little reassurance to a biffer … Read more “Times 26779 – Time to walk, time to run….”
Quick Cryptic 875 by Mara
The last puzzle I blogged was notable for having a grid with a dozen of the answers sporting unchecked initial letters – this time around, there are only four answers with that property, in theory … Read more “Quick Cryptic 875 by Mara”
Sunday Times 4754 by Jeff Pearce
9:36. Pretty straightforward stuff, this, but I enjoyed it a lot. I can’t entirely put my finger on why but it just flowed very nicely. There’s very little by way of obscurity, although I didn’t … Read more “Sunday Times 4754 by Jeff Pearce”
Mephisto 2967 – Paul McKenna
I found this one more tricky than recent Mephistos, and filled in the grid largely from the bottom up. As is typical with Paul McKenna’s Mephisto puzzles there is a pun in the top row … Read more “Mephisto 2967 – Paul McKenna”
Times Saturday 26772 – July 8, 2017. One for our North American friends.
I think this will be another easy or medium puzzle by Saturday standards, at least for the expert solvers. A nice mix – some history, some geography, some languages. The SE corner took me longest … Read more “Times Saturday 26772 – July 8, 2017. One for our North American friends.”
Jumbo 1273
Apologies for typos in this one – typed up after my leaving lunch. Time for a well earned retirement break. Nothing particularly remarkable in this one Across 1 FROSTBITTEN – (BONFIRES, T, T, T), where … Read more “Jumbo 1273”
Times 26,777: Per me si va nella cruciverba dolente
Less hard than yesterday’s puzzle by the looks of things (has everyone else become as obsessed with Starstruck’s Crossword SNITCH app as I have?) but this definitely contained a few speed bumps to stymie a … Read more “Times 26,777: Per me si va nella cruciverba dolente”
Quick Cryptic 874 by Pedro
Gor blimey. Having consistently finished the quickie in under 5 min all week, it comes to my blog day and I make a right meal of it. 14 minutes, minus the 45s it takes to … Read more “Quick Cryptic 874 by Pedro”