Author: branch

This was in the Goldilocks zone for me – not too hard, not too easy, and with much to enjoy. I smiled at the cunning definitions of 16 and 26ac, and admired the unusual wordplay … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27516 – Saturday, 23 November 2019. Goldilocks!”

I went through this at a brisk clip over lunch and had the blog finished over coffee, but there was lots to enjoy. My last two in were 19dn and 25ac, both of which made … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27510 – Saturday, 16 November 2019. Done like a dinner (or lunch).”

I suspect this was a hard one. It’s hard for me to be sure because I had a very full weekend, but after looking at it several times in free intervals, I only had 9ac … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27504 – Saturday 9 November 2019. The deuce of a puzzle.”

If you were on song, you might have got through this quickly. For me, it was more like ‘slow but steady’. I finished confident of the answers but with lots of questions to look up. … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27498 – Saturday, 02 November 2019. Why is it so?”

A typical Saturday I thought. I didn’t know the answer at 10ac, but I got it from the wordplay. The answer at 9dn was obvious from the crossing letters, but I still can’t altogether explain … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27492 – Saturday, 26 October 2019. Not rare, but well done.”

I printed this puzzle within minutes after it appeared online and, like others, blinked with puzzlement that there were only two clues in the down column! Some creatively filled the gap with print-and-paste, or by … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27486 – Saturday, 19 October 2019. Clueless at Crosswords.”

Well, that was too hard for me! Two clues had wordplay that could be used to confirm the (unknown) answer, but for me weren’t specific enough to construct it. Several other answers I biffed, and … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27480 – Saturday, 12 October 2019. By weight or by volume?”

This was at the easier end of Saturday puzzles. The combination of the creative device at 1ac (my favourite clue) and my fanciful biff at 2dn held me up near the end. Thanks to the … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27474 – Saturday, 5 October, 2019.”

This was a bit of a tester, but I very much liked that the things I didn’t know, like the meaning of 10ac and the second bird at 21ac, were things to look up later … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27468- Saturday, 28 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.”