Time taken: 15:59. I struggled with this one, and crawled my way around the grid, relying heavily on checking letters, and in one case I only have half of the answer, but I hope I … Read more “Times 27880 – horses for courses”
Month: January 2021
Times Quick Cryptic No 1793 by Hurley
I feel a little surer of declaring this on the easier side today, particularly after a tough week of QCs thus far. Only one piece of fairly esoteric General Knowledge got in the way of … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1793 by Hurley”
Times 27879 – not the battle of Θερμοπύλες, but into power, stations.
A pleasant twenty minutes for this offering, nothing too contentious. I liked 4d, once I’d got past thinking about Ezra, and liked 6a, as a word; we have owned a few.No politics allowed, but I … Read more “Times 27879 – not the battle of Θερμοπύλες, but into power, stations.”
Times Quick Cryptic No 1792 by Teazel
Introduction Did not finish. Well, Teazel, you got me. Solutions A brief summary of cryptic crosswords —feel free to skip— : Each clue has at least one “definition”: an unbroken string of words which more-or-less straightforwardly … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1792 by Teazel”
Times Cryptic 27878
Solving time: 41 minutes. I found this one fairly straightforward but with one or two MERs along the way. As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and … Read more “Times Cryptic 27878”
Times Quick Cryptic 1791 by Oink
Well, I have to say I made a real pig’s ear of this one and put it down to a bad day at the office. I would be telling porkies if I said I found … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1791 by Oink”
Times 27877 – QAnon anyone?
I have just completed the move to my retirement home (not a retirement home as such – I still have some marbles) in the picturesque island of Cheung Chau. Certainly a change of pace, but … Read more “Times 27877 – QAnon anyone?”
Times Quick Cryptic 1790 by Orpheus
Solving time: 10 minutes with one wrong answer. When blogging I noticed there are rather a lot of containment clues – 7 out of 14 Acrosses and 3 Downs. I don’t think the puzzle would … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1790 by Orpheus”
Mephisto 3150 – Double your words, double your fun!
I found this Mephisto quite difficult, and was stuck for a long while with only about 1/3 of it done. I really needed to grind to get going again, and even then each answer had … Read more “Mephisto 3150 – Double your words, double your fun!”
Sunday Times Cryptic 4937, by Dean Mayer — Crumbs of comfort
This time I’m writing this up almost a week after the working. The character of my marks indicates that I filled it in pretty quickly—when there’s a tough one, I like, for some reason, to … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4937, by Dean Mayer — Crumbs of comfort”