Author: Zabadak

In truth, when I did this puzzle, it wasn’t the night befpre Christmas, but for some of you doing it later in the 24 hour spread it may be, and we certainly have an appropriate … Read more “26290 Not a creature was stirring…the crossword grid as mantlepiece”

….not to mention Herman Melville, Jill Mansell, Michael Crichton and Harriet Beecher Stowe. And the man who wrote “any time not spent on love is wasted.” Which rather puts us logophiles firmly in our place, … Read more “26278, in which much is owed to Billy Joe, Gollum, J. R. Hartley, and Shakespeare”

22 minutes and 4 seconds, so dragging my feet somewhat. This was a crossword where, I think more than usually, you had to pay very close attention to where the dividing lines in the clues … Read more “26266 Reduced price offer in advance of Black Friday: a farthing for a clue.”

Not a particularly difficult one – 15 minutes and 1 second for me, including the usual search for typos and justification of wordplay just to be sure. Plenty of wit to go around, which, together … Read more “26254 (thanks sawbill) Walter Mitty meets Jo McCarthy in “What’s My Lie?””

A 22.35 solve for me, which puts it in the mildly tricky class, possibly stretched a bit by needing to be sure of understanding everything before submitting in case any of you had queries. The … Read more “26242 In which quick grown hoaxes junk ogre lazy dogs”

I thought long and hard about this one, dithering at the last about the poet with two candidates in mind, stopping the clock at a fairly desperate 33.29 – not a score to trouble the … Read more “26230 In which I find the setter a giver of grave ire test. It’s ever great.”

18.51 for this one, which included a couple of minutes’ diligent checking to make sure everything was as right as I could get it and the parsing was all in place. Three of these later … Read more “26218 It’s the pelvic thrust…”

My time of 28.57 suggests (to me, at any rate) that this was a tricky one, though the presence of high-scoring Scrabble letters all over the grid reduces the choices more than somewhat for those … Read more “26206 Can’t be Sven, Bjorn or Agnetha, surely?”

A pleasant little number leavened by flashes of humour – enough for a laugh out loud moment for me – which I compassed in 16.53, including time for making sure I’d got all the wordplay … Read more “26194 Full of eastern promise.”

By a considerable distance the hardest puzzle I have contended with for a very long time, taking over three qaurters of an hour. I hope that’s because the cluing is truly stretching, and not because … Read more “26188 I don’t want to go on the cart.”