Author: Zabadak

Not, I have to say, my best ever solve: a 30 minute struggle against what I hope is subtle and difficult cluing. Either that or I’m losing my touch. My effort was more or less … Read more “25931. In which Ahmet (God willing) and Pete are told to get married again”

This was fun, with some fine punning clues of the kind that make words do stuff they’re not supposed to do. The tricky thing for your obedient servant is that, if one has to explain … Read more “Times crossword 25919: Madrid 913 761 500”

I’m guessing there will be some stellar times today, as I think this one was pretty straightforward. It still took me 22.07, perhaps because I did the Club Monthly not long before and struggled to … Read more “25907 A piece of cake”

A slightly dispiriting one, this. A whizzo start suggested a fast run around the little black squares, then everything started to fall apart around halfway down and my final time, rendered mostly irrelevant by a … Read more “25901: It’s not Cupid, stupid”

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.”