Author: Penfold

This puzzle kept me occupied for about 55 minutes, longer than normal so something must have been tricky.  First in was LAMB and last was DIE HARD. My square bracket keys took a right hammering … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1461 – To Saint Joseph of Arimathea, the patron saint of tinsmiths”

45 minutes.  Maybe slightly over my par time but not too tricky.  I had to check a few facts when writing up the explanations. First in was GAGSTER and last was MASS MEDIA. If any … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1456 – Charles Dickens, Joseph Heller and Bill Bryson walk into a bar”

A perfectly good Jumbo of standard difficulty, for me at least.  I got a little bit stuck on a few at the bottom but still finished in about 40 minutes.  There were some nice touches … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1451 – I’ll have an onion bhaji and some Bombay potatoes please”

This was mostly fairly gentle I thought, with the odd funny word to keep us on our toes, and only took about 35 minutes.  First in was MOIST and last was DIGESTERS.  Can you remember … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1446 – kicking against the what?”

This was fairly standard Jumbo fare I thought, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  It took me about 50 minutes all told.  First in was AIR RAID and last was the WOOD part of the … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1441 – not a palindrome of Ipswich”

I thought this was a fairly gentle lockdown offering, taking about 40 minutes including parsing everything.  First in was BRIDGE at 1d (I sometimes have a cheeky look at 1d if I don’t get 1a … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1436 – I shot a man in Reno”

This puzzle felt quite tricky in places but took about 50 minutes including working out all the parsings so was probably just on the harder side of average, with a goodly amount of GK required … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1431 – If that bird comes near me I’ll break its neck and your b****y arm.”

This particular puzzle detained me for over an hour but I’m not sure if that’s because it was a toughie, or I was having a slow day, or was more distracted by Six Nations rugby … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1426 – Rebel without a clue”

These things seem to come around very quickly when you’ve had a couple of holiday specials but I’m not complaining.  I thought this was a fantastic puzzle, with some absolute gems among the clues.  Thanks … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1421 – The Vacillations of Reedy Corkscrew”

This festive offering kept me occupied for a tad over the hour on boxing day.  A lot of the definitions were very well-disguised (in truth I’m still not sure exactly where some of them are) … Read more “Times Boxing Day Cryptic Jumbo 1416 – every time it rains”