Author: ilanc

A Christmas Eve Sunday Jumbo – which was a bit hard to find online. Xmas eve puzzle with a Xmas-lite theme (pantos, reindeer, santa…) which even I didn’t find very hard. A couple of new … Read more “Sunday Times Jumbo 4204/still Christmas”

No sour grapes this time. Nice selection of clues with not much to complain about. Some surprisingly well-hidden wordplay (20A, 21D) and some good &lits (16D). Across 1 SUNGLASSES – cryptic definition. 7 BASS – … Read more “Sunday Times 4203/no sour grapes this time”

Not a bad puzzle. A couple of clever wordplays. Actually I’m finding it hard to remember what I thought about this puzzle since I wrote these notes a week ago. Perhaps there’s a theme here … Read more “Sunday Times 4202 – etaerio”

Apparently this puzzle was published online with more than a couple of mistakes. I think I’ve been able to identify them… Across 1 BLUESTOC+KINGS – (close but)* followed by KINGS for “top blokes”, I suppose … Read more “Sunday Times 4201/mistakes”

The SE corner held me up: took me as long to solve as the all the rest of the puzzle: total 1/2h. All in all, not as easy as last week’s and slowed down my … Read more “Sunday Times 4200/hang on – not so fast”

I think I actually did this in under 10 minutes which is by far a record for me. Either it was unusually easy or my neurons were all firing laterally. Or both. I think experience … Read more “Sunday Times 4199/fastest ever”

No typos – something always worth mentioning in the context of The Sunday Times. Pretty straightforward – only one unrecognized word (7D). Some of clichéd Usual Suspects (Essen cropped up again, L for student, N … Read more “Sunday Times/4198 – no typos!”

Solving time: 23’ Not very hard – but I was making tea and answering email while solving the puzzle. Got my first copy of Chambers yesterday – which really does make a difference. I found … Read more “4917: easy even for a Sunday”

Solving time: 15 minutes (Posting this all the way from America — it’s Saturday afternoon here and presumably dead of night in London). The Sunday Times puzzle gets a lot of disrespect from the cognoscenti … Read more “Sunday Times 4196/Oct 29”