Author: Guy du Sable

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”

A gentle offering, with evenly paved surfaces slick enough to trip you up as to the cryptic parsing. I have a two or three quibbles, but no major complaint—nothing nearly so troublesome as my problems … Read more “Sunday Times 4831, 30 December 2018, by David McLean — A Saucerful of Resects”

I suddenly remembered this morning that I had to do this by tonight, and I’ve lost my copy so had to work it again, and I had no notes. But this wasn’t a hard one. … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic No. 4829, by Jeff Pearce — Fag ged about it”

I didn’t notice while working it last week, but this puzzle has a large number (13!) of enclosure clues. As usual, I went through this in no great haste, taking time to stop and savor … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic No. 4827, by Dean Mayer — Boxing Day?”

As I set this to publish, I’m just back from the Metropolitan Museum here in New York City, where I spent some time with the sensational Eugène Delacroix. Which seems appropriate, as this puzzle reacquainted … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4825, by David McLean — Four-letter word! (But is it art?)”

* My desultory research indicates that the first citation of “It’s quiet… too quiet” may be a line in the film Drums Along the Mohawk (1939). This was a moderately entertaining and not very difficult … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4823, by Jeff Pearce — It’s easy… too easy(?)*”

I enjoyed this a lot. FOI was DESPOIL, then FAIR-AND-SQUARE, and then, from only the Q and the definition, I got SESQUIPEDALIAN, and was well on my way. The only frustrating LOGJAM occurred with my … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4821, by Dean Mayer — Any eyebrows raised?”

It was pleasant looking back over this puzzle, which I recall as a(n) 13ing outing, after a week. In the first edition of this blog, I thought that the one clue where I detected a … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4819, by David McLean — Comma chameleon”

Pretty easy, this one. I filled in most of the acrosses, in order, in record time, and most of the rest came fairly quickly. Four anagrams, and three in a row! I even biffed a … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4817, by Jeff Pearce — Like a result in the night”

And it isn’t even the entire clue. My goodness, has this ever happened before? (nagarams)* like this ACROSS  1 Indian dish served in food halls (4) DHAL — Hidden in food halls  4 Boss with … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic No. 4815, by Dean Mayer — Yon lone nagaram…!”