Author: Penfold

For reasons I won’t go into this blog will be brief.  Normal “service” will be resumed next time.  Also I’ll be at the Championships on Saturday so won’t be able to field comments efficiently. Under … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1411 – two detective inspectors and two able-bodied seamen walk into a crossword”

What ho you lot (if lot is the right word in the tumbleweed-strewn ghost town that passes for the Jumbi bloggage environs) I managed to knock this off in a slightly-slower-than-average 40 minutes, despite quite … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1406 – Grandmaster Flash and the hot-tempered five”

A perfectly fine cryptic jumbo this with a couple of bits of advanced vocab. at 45 minutes including parsing everything, on my scale that makes it just on the harder side of average. First in … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1401 – the fastest thing on two feet”

What a lovely puzzle this was with plenty in the way of cleverness, wit and neat definitions, the mark of a pucker Times crossword puzzle.  Thank you setter. It took me about 50 minutes so … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1396 – What about Toto?”

Buenos dias amigos. There was some tricky stuff in here, for which I needed aids.  I smashed the hell out of my square bracket keys wiring up the clue explanations so there appear to have … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1391 – I think I’m Goan bananas”

Not much to say about this.  It was perfectly acceptable, occasionally witty, fare (albeit with a couple of rather odd CDs), taking around 35 minutes. First in was MISINFORM at 1a, last was STALL. Clues … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1386 – just how much work is a QM expected to do?”

Crikey, these come around quickly when you have a couple of bank holidays in quick succession so I’m afraid you’ve got me again. So here we have another puzzle with a bit of a popular … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1381 – put your records on”

1376 was the Saturday puzzle from that glorious Easter weekend.  Thankfully it was very much on the gentler side so we were all able to knock it off pretty quickly and get back into the garden, weren’t … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1376 – the one where it isn’t Ross from Friends”

Hello again.  This puzzle kept me occupied for over an hour so I’d put it at the trickier end of the scale.  I needed aids to check some of the more obscure stuff. There was … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1371 – From the mountain tops, down to the sunny street.”

Hello again.  A puzzle of average difficluty I’d say with enough in the way of unknowns to provide some education. I’ll be en route to Tenerife for the best part of today (Saturday) so it … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1366”