Author: Guy du Sable

Every ingredient of this tasty puzzle seemed to be in apple-pie order… hence my headline. The expression, nodding here (first) to, uh, clue (a near homophone) 18—comes from the fact that pedestrian crossings in France … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4853, by David McLean — Tout est dans les clous”

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”