Author: Zabadak

I felt I made heavier weather of this than it warranted, taking a neat 23 minutes, but since that’s less than three Vs it may be more taxing that that. There are also an appreciable … Read more “27838 Thursday, 3 December 2020 Pink lemonade”

So. There’s some clever stuff in here which had me casting around long after I’d submitted with a quiet (and, as it turns out, effective) prayer to the gods of greenness. There’s some GK which … Read more “27826 Thursday, 19 November 2020 Hasty to its close ebbs out life’s little day”

I rather enjoyed this quirky number over 18.44, as a break from the drawn-our tension fest that is the American election process. At the time of writing, the BBC is still rather coy about predicting … Read more “27814 Thursday, 5 November 2020 Yum Yum”

I scattered clues around the grid with compete abandon, ignoring any semblance of systematic solving and rather moving on from clues I couldn’t resolve without the kind of relentless concentration that leads to a proper … Read more “27802 Thursday, 22 October 2020 Nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach yer..”

A mid range puzzle for me with the top section, especially the NW, giving most trouble with 1ac for a long time being the wrong but possible REPOST partly because I read changes as charges. … Read more “27790 Thursday, 8 October 2020 Dinner dinner dinner dinner”

Not much more demanding than yesterday’s, and as far as I can tell lacking the extraordinary NINA in the first letters of the across clues. I polished this off in 13.37. It helps if you … Read more “27778 Thursday, 24 September 2020 It’s time to crack open the Bolly”

Another in my series of Puzzles That Took Longer Than Perhaps They Should, occupying me for almost 30 minutes, but I liked it a lot. Throughout the surfaces are clean and plausible, and the wordplay … Read more “27766 Thursday, 10 September 2020 Questa o quella per me pari sono”

My time shows up on the board as 18.48, but that’s only because I had to sort out an internet fubar which delayed the submission of my pink square blemished grid by some 4 minutes. … Read more “27754 Thursday, 27 August 2020 “David and Solomon lived very merry lives””

No too taxing, completed by your blogger du jour in a smidge under 21 minutes. Almost all of the vocab would be accessible to people doing the Times 50 years ago, and I applaud the … Read more “27742 Thursday, 13 August 2020 A beast by any other number”

A rather entertaining number which kept me scrabbling around for almost 26 minutes and sent me hunting more often than usual for the J key. In the end, there are only (only!) 5 in the … Read more “27730 Thursday, 30 July 2020 …is brought to you today by the letter J and the number 8”