Author: Guy du Sable

This all seemed fairly straightforward, and straightforwardly fair, but wittily engaging and elegantly clued. I doubt if anyone will have had major problems. This afternoon at an event remembering Jonas Mekas (1922–2019), I learned that … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4851, 19 May 2019, by Robert Price — Scherzo in “Be Sharp” (See?)… minor”

I am writing this intro in my cosy chambre in the famous Hôtel la Louisiane (there’s a documentary about it) on rue de Seine (Saint-Germain-dés-Pres), on vendredi après-midi, after a visit to the Librairie philosophique … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4849, May 5 2019, by Dean Mayer — Oui, whee!”

Greetings from the heart of the Cévennes region of France. I wrote most of this before my trip began, fortunately. It’s rather late here and I just realized that it’s already dimanche. And I have … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4847, April 21 2019, by David McLean — Seeing double”

Well, that went down easily, a very smooth blend with some vivid, if uncomplex, notes, which left me with a warm feeling inside. I am just back from the fantastic Guggenheim show of the heretofore-unsung … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4845, 7 April 2019, by Robert Price — Pour me another one!”

This seemed harder than any Dean Mayer I’d heretofore had the honor of blogging. But maybe I was just a bit trepidatious after the previous week’s debut performance of our new Sunday blogger (with whose … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4843, 24 March 2019, by Dean Mayer — Is it just me?”

There were no “meh” moments, just much merriment. I particularly liked the definitions so well hidden in plain sight for 1A, !0A and 21A. Definitions elsewhere were sneaky in other ways (“School of note”). I … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4841, 10 March 2019, by David McLean — A barking good puzzle!”

Besides the somewhat obscure word at 10 that is partly clued by an equally obscure definition, this was pretty straightforward. I know my headline is stretching the actual facts of the grid, but it’s the … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4839, 24 February 2019, by David McLean — PROTESTERS below the CONDO”

I don’t remember feeling this one was particularly hard, but I was unstressed and unpressed for time, so no momentary difficulty felt frustrating. There were plenty of chewy bits to savor, including one word that … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4837, 10 February 2019, by David McLean — No sweat!”

Fun one, not as hard as I feared, once I finally got started. I’m sure 15 was extremely easy if you happened to know what “Honister” refers to; I didn’t, but got it (eventually) anyway. … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4835, 13 January 2019, by Jeff Pearce — Huckleberry friend”

This was an engaging exercise, with some fine, quite deceptive surfaces. The four Double Definitions are not scintillating, but such rarely are (and the last one’s kind of fun), but a few of the Cryptic … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4833, 13 January 2019, by Dean Mayer — Think Twice, It’s All Right”