Time: 45 minutesMusic: Stan Getz, Sweet Rain My time may not seem that great, but my last 30 minutes were spent on a single clue. If I had happened to see it right away, then … Read more “Times 27139 – Weakness? What weakness?”
Month: September 2018
QC 1175 by Hurley
Well I found this a bit like eating a piece of cake during a walk in the park with a gentle breeze blowing whilst swiping tasty candy from passing babies with a load of children running … Read more “QC 1175 by Hurley”
Sunday Times 4814 by Jeff Pearce
9:49. Straightforward stuff from Jeff this week. I found a few of the definitions a bit loose as I solved, but they all turn out to be supported by dictionaries and/or things I hadn’t come … Read more “Sunday Times 4814 by Jeff Pearce”
Mephisto 3027 – Paul McKenna
Those of you who do not do Mephisto puzzles regularly may get tripped up by one of the differences between the daily puzzles and the specialist puzzles which is not announced. When there is a … Read more “Mephisto 3027 – Paul McKenna”
Times Cryptic Jumbo 1339: Cracking Toast
One of the best Jumbos I can remember blogging, this – quite often there’s the feeling that a Jumbo setter might have (completely understandably, really!) gone into churn mode to get the job done, but … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1339: Cracking Toast”
Times Cryptic No 27132 – Saturday, 01 September 2018. Don’t talk of clues – show me!
I found this puzzle a workout! About a third of the clues were “regular weight” and went in in 10 minutes or so, then I spent another hour or more looking at clue after clue … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27132 – Saturday, 01 September 2018. Don’t talk of clues – show me!”
Summer Bank Holiday Jumbo 1340
This one required an average solving time but it felt harder than that – there were several answers that I had to biff and then reverse-engineer the parsing. FOI 5A, LOI 47D. I very much liked … Read more “Summer Bank Holiday Jumbo 1340”
Quick Cryptic 1174 by Del Boy
Well, well. I dread to think what any solver would make of this if they had never heard of the TV series Only Fools and Horses. For those of us based in the UK, it … Read more “Quick Cryptic 1174 by Del Boy”
Times 27,137: Born Under One-Inch Punches
I had a whale of a time with this “proper Friday puzzle”, which took me 9 minutes on paper to negotiate its full gamut of cryptic tricks. Loads of treasurable surfaces, and it’s always a … Read more “Times 27,137: Born Under One-Inch Punches”
Times Quick Cryptic No 1173 by Tracy
I have blogged Tracy a fair few times, enjoying the range of his clue types and difficulty levels. This one took me 12 minutes from start to finish, so was nicely in the middle of … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1173 by Tracy”