A very tough but typically brilliant MCS puzzle, that was a wonderful stew of hard wordplay and pretty high-level knowledge both vocabularian and GK-wise. The down clues were my favourites this time around, with the … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,222: A Bit Harder Than Chopsticks!”
Month: March 2019
Mephisto 3056 Tim Moorey
Unless you’re very experienced you are unlikely to solve a Mephisto without using Chambers. The idea is that you use the precise wordplay to derive an answer that you then verify in the dictionary. 13A … Read more “Mephisto 3056 Tim Moorey”
Sunday Times Cryptic 4843, 24 March 2019, by Dean Mayer — Is it just me?
This seemed harder than any Dean Mayer I’d heretofore had the honor of blogging. But maybe I was just a bit trepidatious after the previous week’s debut performance of our new Sunday blogger (with whose … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4843, 24 March 2019, by Dean Mayer — Is it just me?”
Times Cryptic No 27306 – Saturday, 23 March 2019. In the mood.
I solved this in quickstep tempo: slow, slow, quick, quick, slow. (Pause for vinyl1 to put on appropriate mood music.) I finished the SE corner after some time and then worked up and left until … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27306 – Saturday, 23 March 2019. In the mood.”
Times Cryptic Jumbo 1371 – From the mountain tops, down to the sunny street.
Hello again. This puzzle kept me occupied for over an hour so I’d put it at the trickier end of the scale. I needed aids to check some of the more obscure stuff. There was … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1371 – From the mountain tops, down to the sunny street.”
Times Quick Cryptic No 1319 by Felix
A neat, witty and, dare I say, not too tricky puzzle (judging by my F1set solving time of sub-4 minutes) from Felix, (our crossword editor) today. Leading by example, perhaps? The enjoyment started with the … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1319 by Felix”
Times 27,311: Undercooked Overcooked Gangling Free
My comfortable 4m48 time for this one, after some decidedly chewy numbers early in the week, makes me think that the current management is sticking to its guns about its recent assertion that there is … Read more “Times 27,311: Undercooked Overcooked Gangling Free”
Times Quick Cryptic No 1318 by Hurley
Average difficulty puzzle from Hurley today, which isn’t to say that I managed to finish it: I had all bar 15d done by the 10 minute mark, and then spent two minutes on a less-than-algorithmic … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1318 by Hurley”
27310 Thursday, 28 March 2019 Look for the bare necessities
An amiable piece of work, with pleasures to be found on the way and enough misdirection to keep it interesting. The right side went in quicker than the left for me, possibly because 1 across … Read more “27310 Thursday, 28 March 2019 Look for the bare necessities”
Times 27309 – certainly not vanilla, but not tickling my taste buds much.
Maybe I’m a bit rusty, but I struggled to get on to the setter’s wavelength with this, working slowly from top left to lower right and ending in an unimpressive 40 minutes with a few … Read more “Times 27309 – certainly not vanilla, but not tickling my taste buds much.”