When I do my ‘how to solve’ course on Saturday, I’ll start at the beginning with “what’s a cryptic crossword?”, which rapidly becomes “what’s a cryptic clue?” – a nutshell description before we launch into … Read more “23,811 – no 5A here”
Author: petebiddlecombe
Suggestions list sent to Times Crossword Club
Here’s the revised list of suggestions, which I’ve just sent to various people at the Times, including Sue Kentish, Crossword Club Editor, and Richard Browne, the Crossword Editor. Introduction: The purpose of this message is … Read more “Suggestions list sent to Times Crossword Club”
23,805 – setter wins on 7D?
Solving time 15:40 A fairly sluggish time for this one as two crossing pairs of answers kept me thinking for quite a while at the end – 3/11 and then 12/7. Like jimbo, I found … Read more “23,805 – setter wins on 7D?”
Times Crossword House Style
This is a list of points about the Times puzzle that differ from at least some other cryptic xwds. (Posts with information like this that should be good advice for ever will be stored under … Read more “Times Crossword House Style”
Times Crossword Club – top 10 improvements
This is a list of suggestions about what they need to look at, in descending order of importance. Please add comments to correct the order or suggest things that I’ve forgotten. My intention is to … Read more “Times Crossword Club – top 10 improvements”
COWPOW polls
Unless there are some volunteers to organise them (in which case, add a comment here!), I’m afraid I’m going to drop these – the hour or so each week that it takes to do them … Read more “COWPOW polls”
23,799 – easy enough
Solving time 6:47 Few problems with this puzzle on a day which is effectively Monday. Happy New Year to all. Across 1 ROTIS=riots*,SERIE(s) 9 (c)HECK(L)ER 10 PUBLISH – Cryptic def., ref. “publish and be damned” … Read more “23,799 – easy enough”
Chambers going cheap
For some reason, a thumb-indexed version of the current Chambers is on Amazon UK for the absurdly low price of £5.39 plus p & p. Although it’s not an official dictionary for the Times puzzle, … Read more “Chambers going cheap”
Puzzles to try while the Times site is down
Here are some links to sites with puzzles, in the absence of a working Times site. We start with four current Christmas puzzles, then move on to sites with old puzzles, but these should include … Read more “Puzzles to try while the Times site is down”
Times Crossword Club problems again
Just a reminder that we have a continuing post about these problems here. I appreciate that it’s very frustrating not to be able to get at the puzzles, but I can’t condone putting scanned copies … Read more “Times Crossword Club problems again”