11:35. The Sunday Times puzzle before Christmas always used to be a jumbo, so I was expecting extended blogging duty this week. I had forgotten that last year the jumbo was the puzzle after Christmas, … Read more “Sunday Times 4934 by Dean Mayer”
Month: December 2020
Mephisto 3147 – Paul McKenna
I think this was one of the most difficult Mephistos of the year, there are not a lot of familiar words, and many obscure uses of common terms through the grid. I spent quite a … Read more “Mephisto 3147 – Paul McKenna”
Times Cryptic No 27852 – Saturday, 19 December 2020. All over the grid.
By the sound of it, some solvers like to take a structured approach: start with 1ac and proceed in order to 24dn, before going back to fill in any gaps. That’s not my style! I … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27852 – Saturday, 19 December 2020. All over the grid.”
Times Cryptic Jumbo 1472 – 12th December
Compliments of the season to you all! Turkey sandwich anyone? A fairly gentle Jumbo here from two weeks ago but with a bit of a sting in the tail. At the end 34A had me … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1472 – 12th December”
Eleven Days of Christmas – QC 1774 by Noel
Seasons greetings one and all. So there’s a fairly obvious theme here, and also some obscure vocabulary. I imagine the latter is there so that the former can be crowbarred in. But wordplay is fairly easy overall, … Read more “Eleven Days of Christmas – QC 1774 by Noel”
Times 27,857: Three Hos Before The Mast
A medium difficulty puzzle that should hopefully not interfere with the digestion of anyone’s Christmas dinner. I very much liked the use of “eg” in 5dn and the neighbouring &lit was cute too. A very … Read more “Times 27,857: Three Hos Before The Mast”
Christmas Day Puzzles
Seeing a comment in today’s QC discussion made me realise that perhaps some TfTT contributors may not be aware that the 15×15 and Quick Cryptic puzzles will be available on Christmas Day as usual on … Read more “Christmas Day Puzzles”
Times Quick Cryptic No 1773 by Pedro
An approachable QC from Pedro that took me 15 minutes exactly to complete and parse, but which contains nothing to frighten the reindeer! My FOI was COPY, LOI was PIOUS, with WOD QUERULOUS and COD … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1773 by Pedro”
Times 27856 – t’was the morning before Christmas
Time taken: 8:21 Still got a little bit to unravel before confidently writing this up, but this was on the easier side with many generous definitions, fortunately my only guess was correct, and now I … Read more “Times 27856 – t’was the morning before Christmas”
Times 27855 – back to Tier One.
After last week’s toughie, the last of the three competition puzzles which weren’t, we’re back to a lower level of difficulty with this one. Quite a lot of convoluted wordplay there if you can be … Read more “Times 27855 – back to Tier One.”