Author: Zabadak

A moderate puzzle after yesterday’s eccentric offering, with fewer tricky words and definitions. I still managed to trundle off down the wrong track at a couple of places, and came home in 16.42. The mutilated … Read more “27442 Thursday, 29 August 2019 The Justice, In fair round belly”

While this continued my run this week of being in the 15/16/17 range at 17.22 it felt a lot meatier with a lot of the wordplay needing a lot of untangling. I took time to … Read more “27430 Thursday, 15 August 2019 The way the world ends”

I thought this was an absolute cracker, even though I whizzed through it in 15 and a half minutes, but I’m fully aware that those who are not fans of Rev Spooner or of interdependent … Read more “27418 Thursday, 1 August 2019 ..but his face rings a bell”

27406  Thursday, 18 July 2019 A struggle for me, midnight solving not necessarily to blame, extending to all but 32 minutes and producing an improbable but annoyingly pink error. As disclosed, I have some minor … Read more “Thursday, 18 July 2019 In which the miller’s son turns up late”

Happy 4th July to our transatlantic friends: if you happen to be anywhere near the Lincoln Memorial do try to enjoy the parade of tanks (so far I’ve spotted two), other military hardware and whatever … Read more “27394 Thursday, 4 July 2019 What Is This Thing Called, Love?”

I found this on the tough side, taking a pleasingly alliterative (anumertive?) 32.32 to complete, though Love Island was burbling in the background courtesy of Mrs Z and may hae been a disturbance to the … Read more “No 27382, Thursday, 20 June 2019 No gnu flag”

More TLS stuff in this one than some of you will be comfortable with, so I’ve added some extra high and low culture just to be even more annoying. Barely a scrap of sciency stuff … Read more “27370, Thursday, 6 June 2019 Something will turn up, not only in the down clues”

Certainly not as tough as yesterday’s, and I stopped the clock at 17 minutes dead. You do need a tiny bit of history awareness for the battleground and there are a couple of archaisms that … Read more “27358 Thursday, 23 May 2019 Drag night?”

How anyone expects a coherent blog from me this evening after the ridiculously improbable progression of Spurs into the Champions League Final I cannot tell, but I’ll try. I polished this off in 17.09, which … Read more “27346 Thursday, 9 May 2019 Keep taking the tablets”

I made rather a dog’s brexit of this one, badly mis-entering 5d and thus rendering 13ac as vaguely plausible AMNESTY and making 6d impossible.  Dozing off didn’t help this fluffery, so a not-difficult crossword stretched … Read more “Cryptic No 27334 Thursday, 25 April 2019 This be the verse”