Author: Zabadak

Undoubtedly there will be be letters, and not only the 161 in the grid. Our puzzle contains some genuine obscurities, one in Sanskrit for goodness sake, which you either know or you don’t. There’s a … Read more “25883 One to bring out the latent Grundy in all of us”

A very pretty set of clues characterised by smooth surfaces and believable little scenarios. This one took me 21’06” with only stupidities such as not being able to do anagrams and befuddlement with the drinks … Read more “25871 Napoleon’s Palindrome”

Either this was pretty dense or I am, or possibly both. 32’11” with the bottom half very much more slippery than the top. There’s a Dashiell Hammett/ Raymond Chandler thing going on here, with a … Read more “25859* “The streets were dark with something more then night.” Raymond Chandler *edited”

Around 14 minutes (you’ll just have to take my word for it). My never-lets-you-down BT broadband threw one of its hissy fits just as I pressed submit, lost all the data and had to be … Read more “25847 Nocturne in slightly flat”

24 minutes dead for this one, which is four better than a clue a minute. I enjoyed this as a technical exercise, finding that many of the clues yielded to the careful unravelling of the … Read more “Times Crossword 25835: Don’t bank on it.”

21.23 for this one, with a strong feeling that it should have been a lot quicker. The Wedgwood caused the most trouble, probably because I got fixated on gazunders and other products of the Staffordshire pottery, and couldn’t pick … Read more “Times crossword 25823: enough to drive you potty.”

A smidge under 20 minutes for this, working steadily around the grid, encountering something of uniformity of  difficulty where even the tiddlers put up about the same resistance as their longer sistren. There were things … Read more “25811 What soubriquet would you give to the puzzlin’, solvin’, bloggin’ bore?”

This puzzle appeared briefly yesterday on the club page, and McText cheerfully undertook to blog it as his swansong. Perhaps we should club together and buy him a subscription! I offer him my best wishes … Read more “25799 – I refer the honourable members to the answer McText gave earlier…”

I thought I was on for a fast time and another Thursday easy, but while the perimeter clues went in smoothly enough, the internal ones, particularly the four longest ones, proved highly resistant. Add two … Read more “25787: An exercise that dampened expectations of a quick finish”

Less than 10 minutes for this one, so look out for some whizzo times, and then have a go at the Quickie for something a bit more challenging. Well, I say ten minutes. It was … Read more “25775 A very peculiar practice”