Author: Chris

A rather thorny crossword today which took me 16 minutes.

Another real Tuesday struggle – for me, at least.

This proved another in a run of not-very-quick cryptics for me. 12 minutes with the problem clue being 9dn. I liked the definition of 16dn.

A scorpion of a QC! I was well and truly bitten by the sting in the tail which was 13dn.

I got off to a good start with 1ac and then just about kept going, although it seemed rather sticky. I finished in the SE with 22dn just on 9 minutes. Looking back this seems like a pretty decent time. Having now had time to appreciate the complexity of the clues and the smoothly polished surfaces, I do congratulate Joker for a great puzzle.

8 minutes for an anti-clockwise solve finishing with 6dn. I’m a bit tight on time today so let’s snap into it.

A fun tussle with Trelawney here – who I declare the winner after pushing me just over 10 minutes. Lots of anagrams, double definitions, blind alleys and smooth surfaces. Great fun – thanks.

This was an odd solve as I didn’t click with any acrosses until somewhere in the bottom half. The SE then filled in followed by NE and then the rest, finishing in the SW. My last two were the crossing 17ac and 14dn.
This all seemed to take an age, yet I finished 30 seconds within 10 minutes.

This was a long way from a smooth solve – having to leave clues for later all over the grid. It seemed to take ages, so when I finished with 12dn with the clock stopped at 12 minutes, it didn’t seem too bad.

Quite a lot of untangling required here with a few interesting threads which led me off to the dictionaries. 21ac ended up being my problem clue today – it took me to just over 10 minutes.