Another impressive exercise in dictionary-digging, with the spelling required for 21ac enough to make the most hardened solver blanch, and 11ac recalling the headiest days of the much-mourned TLS Crossword blogs. I enjoyed the mad … Read more “Monthly Club Special 20,228: Be The Change You Want To See In Your Grid”
Month: September 2019
Times 27469 – Not stuff you’d find Marvin, Borgnine and Bronson countenancing, methinks
With its weird exercise routine (‘a household phrase’ in the 1920s, as Pinter puts it) and its Irish lake isle, this is by no mean your average Monday offering, taking me in excess of 40 … Read more “Times 27469 – Not stuff you’d find Marvin, Borgnine and Bronson countenancing, methinks”
Times Quick Cryptic 1450 by Orpheus
Solving time: 9 minutes. I found this pretty straightforward. As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones] Across … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1450 by Orpheus”
Mephisto 3082 – by Don Manley
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. 14A … Read more “Mephisto 3082 – by Don Manley”
Sunday Times Cryptic 4869, 22 IX 2019, by Robert Price — Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off
Not that there’s anything “off” about this puzzle. I found it generally satisfying, with a few interesting bits of vocab, and nothing to complain about. No, the title references my word of the day, PROROGUE, … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4869, 22 IX 2019, by Robert Price — Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”
Times Cryptic No 27462 – Saturday, 21 September 2019.
I was still in China when this puzzle appeared, so I enjoyed the local colour of 21ac. The puzzle seemed to have an unusually high proportion of clues simply requiring us to assemble (or disassemble) … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27462 – Saturday, 21 September 2019.”
Times Cryptic Jumbo 1401 – the fastest thing on two feet
A perfectly fine cryptic jumbo this with a couple of bits of advanced vocab. at 45 minutes including parsing everything, on my scale that makes it just on the harder side of average. First in … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1401 – the fastest thing on two feet”
Times Quick Cryptic No 1449 by Joker
A neat and, dare I say it, (I have been wrong in the past), straightforward puzzle from Joker today. An abundance of simple A + B and letter deletion type clues should get you going. … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1449 by Joker”
Times 27,467: Champy Days Are Here Again
Can it really be? December 7th? Jeepers, I hope that flying over from San Francisco for a long weekend then will be within my price range. In any case, this felt like a championship-strength puzzle … Read more “Times 27,467: Champy Days Are Here Again”
Times Quick Cryptic No 1448 by Corelli
Tricky enough today from Corelli, with quite a lot of misdirection and unyielding definitions that needed checkers to unravel. Oh, and an impressively interwoven Hamlet theme running throughout – I count a dozen characters directly … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1448 by Corelli”