A lot of multiple word play clues, many anagrams, made this on the hard side for me today – 16 minutes to complete. Thinking of a comparison to the main 15 X 15 puzzle, I … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1096 by Mara”
Month: May 2018
QC 1095 by Grumpy
Oh the shame! I am sorry everybody, I’ve had such a busy weekend that I had forgotten I was on duty this morning and have been tidying up admin tasks since 7.00 am instead of … Read more “QC 1095 by Grumpy”
Times 27043 – “On my foot!”
Time: 22 minutesMusic: Chopin, Polonaises, Pollini This was a relatively straightforward Monday puzzle that should not present much difficulty, with a number of chestnuts and clues suitable for the Quickie. Some may have to retrieve … Read more “Times 27043 – “On my foot!””
Mephisto 3011 – Tim Moorey
I didn’t have too much difficulty with this one, and I thought the design of the grid was very solver friendly, with a lot of thre letter strings in checked letters. It was an interesting … Read more “Mephisto 3011 – Tim Moorey”
Sunday Times 4798 by David McLean
17:18. I felt I made very heavy weather of this. I solved about half of it very quickly indeed, but then slowed to a crawl. Broadly speaking I found the north-east a lot easier than … Read more “Sunday Times 4798 by David McLean”
Times Cryptic No 27036 – Saturday, 12 May 2018. Rugola salad?
This was fairly straightforward. I struggled a bit with the salad ingredient at 17ac – not rugola, of course – but otherwise progress was steady. The long anagrams down the left and across the bottom … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27036 – Saturday, 12 May 2018. Rugola salad?”
Times Cryptic Jumbo No 1322 – 7th May
A fairly gentle Jumbo for the Bank Holiday Monday after the rather trickier Saturday pachyderm. Nothing too difficult or obscure today – I even knew the ice skating twizzle at 1d, but one or two … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo No 1322 – 7th May”
Jumbo 1321
This took me 55 minutes all told so that would put it on the slightly tricky side of average and I thought there was some extremely good stuff here, including plenty of very neat wordplay … Read more “Jumbo 1321”
Times 27,041: Glass Half Empty / Glass Half Full
[Whoops – managed to post this to my own blog instead of the community first thing this morning by mistake. Sorry about the delay!] A straightforward puzzle by recent standards, with a not unpleasant mid-20th-century … Read more “Times 27,041: Glass Half Empty / Glass Half Full”
Quick Cryptic 1094 by Pedro
Last time I completely misjudged the mood of the room and praised a puzzle that you all thought was a stinker. This week, I’m going to stick my neck out again and risk my remaining … Read more “Quick Cryptic 1094 by Pedro”