Author: Chris

On holiday so as brief as ever. Having struggled in the top half, I was lining this one up as difficult but progress further down and a 13 minute finish has made me ease the … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1506 by Izetti”

I can’t give a time as I’d just crept to the 10 minute mark with 1ac, 5ac, 11dn and 21ac yet to complete when I was interrupted. I came back to find the timer at … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1501 by Hurley”

This was all going well and would have finished inside 10 minutes had it not been for 8dn. I took an extra minute or so to realise what was happening and then, as ever, it … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1496 by Mara”

Still in my run of 12 minute solves so either I’m getting slower or the QCs have upped their game a bit. There seemed to be a lot of positional clues throughout this crossword and … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1491 by Joker”

11 minutes needed here to complete an interesting QC full of great surfaces. In addition to familiar QC fare, there are a few twists in the parsing which would have made Agatha Christie happy. I … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1486 by Wurm”

13 minutes – so not easy for me – with the left hand side going in a lot faster than the right. LOI 4dn. I enjoyed the short, sharp clues (8ac, 11ac, 20ac and 1dn) … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1481 by Oink”

Yet another 12 minute solve – but I’ll settle for that for an Izetti with many long answers. There’s plenty of tricky anagrams and so many silky surfaces that it’s hard to pick a COD. … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1476 by Izetti”

Another over-target 12 minutes today caused by longish holdups on clues around the grid where the definition wasn’t obvious to me – the best example being LOI 10ac. I’m not sure that this puzzle is … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1471 by Teazel”

This QC was so well devised that it led me the wrong way around most of the clues. I gave up on any thought of timings and settled down to work through and enjoy the … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1466 by Joker”

Hmph! For me, the ‘Q’ in this one stood for Quite hard and I felt lucky to come in on 14 minutes. The odd tea and haircut I could have lived with, but what was … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1461 by Breadman”