Author: Chris

Excellent fare here from Mara – in my opinion a good balance of ‘quick’ clues with enough clever ones to be interesting. The NE corner 4dn, 5dn, 9ac, 11ac changed my time from 8-9 minutes … Read more “Quick Cryptic 831 by Mara”

As a complete contrast to yesterday’s puzzle – answer after answer went straight in and I thought I may have been in PB territory. However, the lower half proved a little more challenging and I … Read more “Quick Cryptic 826 by Flamande”

Dodgy wifi here so my 14 minutes probably indicates medium rather than hard. This, however, was no excuse for the time I took to get the anagram at 10ac. A smattering of religious and clever … Read more “Quick Cryptic 821 by Tracy”

The crossings of 17ac, 3dn and 18dn caused delay in this otherwise fairly straightforward yet very entertaining puzzle. I’m currently unsure about the parsing of ‘m’ in 17ac – but hope it’ll become clear as … Read more “Quick Cryptic 816 by Flamande”

Just crept under 10 minutes – which was something of a surprise as it seemed more challenging than that. Take some time to appreciate the art of some of the cluing. There’s some excellent stuff … Read more “Quick Cryptic 811 by Mara”

9 minutes – so quite straightforward. Some ‘nice’ surfaces – especially 7dn plus a few Roman numerals (6dn) bunged in for good measure. Any questions just ask. ACROSS 1. Sapphire – blue stone. County (SHIRE) … Read more “Quick Cryptic 806 by Joker”

14 minutes for this tussle with Izetti who continues our education en route to the 15×15 which, hopefully, is to be your next target. These include double bend, plural French words, subatomic particles, no less … Read more “Quick Cryptic 801 by Izetti”

Early solving of the two long clues at 3 and 8dn could produce a quick solve of the whole. This is only theoretical as I struggled with both, came in at 13 minutes and found … Read more “Quick Cryptic 796 by Alconiere”

Just over the 10 minutes being held up by a couple at top and bottom of the RHS. Here and there some vocabulary which isn’t in everyday use but nothing untoward. For no apparent reason … Read more “Quick Cryptic 791 by Teazel”

Just clicked over 10 minutes for this – would have been faster if I hadn’t enjoyed working out some of the, at times, intricate word play. Joint CODs to the two long down clues 3 … Read more “Quick Cryptic 786 by Tracy”