Author: Chris

I thought this was excellent – quite a few trip-ups to catch the unwary and certain clues needed a real focus to break through. There’s also a French wine and an Italian island – so … Read more “Quick Cryptic 621 by Orpheus”

If you’re familiar with saints days then getting the long anagram quickly will speed you through this. I ended up on 14 minutes. A good crossword with plenty to work out – a good balance, … Read more “Quick Crytpic 616 by Alconiere”

A bit of a hold up in the top half pushed this over the ten minute mark. Quite a bit of mental agility required in the word play plus a couple of bits of GN … Read more “Quick Cryptic 611 by Hurley”

A crossword of two halves – the right hand side being considerably swifter than the left. 13 minutes in total which puts this in my ‘medium difficulty’ bracket. Being from Norfolk, the resort wasn’t a … Read more “Quick Cryptic 606 by Orpheus”

A magic crossword at a good QC level – 10 minutes. Quite a lot of turning bits of word play and a French novelist to keep us on our toes but nothing too hard. Thanks … Read more “Quick Cryptic 601 by Tracy”

Well, you live and learn. 1dn is such a learning point for me and took a lot of my 16 minute solve. Should you get 16ac in advance then 1dn shouldn’t cause too many problems.Otherwise … Read more “Quick Cryptic 596 by Felix”

As Jackt said yesterday, the QC should cater for varying levels of solver skill but I feel that Teazel has teased us a little too much today. On their own, several unusual vocabulary/pieces of general … Read more “Quick Cryptic 591 by Teazel”

It took me a long time to click into this one and then I mistyped a letter so didn’t get a time – but I’d guess about 15 minutes. I expect some fast times from … Read more “Quick Cryptic 586 by Alconiere”

A challenging crossword which I managed to get through in just over 10 minutes – but they weren’t easy minutes and included a great deal of interest and a blind guess. I’m not sure how … Read more “Quick Cryptic 581 by Joker”

This is a very clever, good fun crossword – thank you Mara for clever clueing – lovely surfaces and cunning anagram indicators. I should have spent more time enjoying it but quick, quick very, very … Read more “Quick Cryptic 576 by Mara”