If a week is a long time in politics, 6 months seems an eternity in the blogsphere. Bloggers, and more so commenters, come and go, and I don’t know who reads the ‘About this blog’ … Read more “This blog is now 0.5 years old!”
Author: petebiddlecombe
23,590 – Seeing double
Solving time: 12:27 – last to go in were the 5/16 crossing, then 17 which took 2 or 3 minutes to puzzle out. Across 1 CANDLEWICK – 2 meanings – candlewick is that stuff that … Read more “23,590 – Seeing double”
Mephisto 2434 – Mike Laws
Solving time – 33 minutes, without Chambers Mephisto puzzles by Mike Laws can be tricky, but this one was fairly straightforward. One or two points of detail mentioned below where you may be able to … Read more “Mephisto 2434 – Mike Laws”
Something extra to keep you busy
Just after completing his stand-in spell for Richard, Mr Magoo sent me a couple of puzzles for blog readers. I’ve added these to the guest puzzles section of my crossword-related web site, or if you’d … Read more “Something extra to keep you busy”
23,584 – tough for me
Solving time 13:10 Slow progress at first, with most of my answers at the bottom. Then gradually got going. Quite a few two-word phrases to be given the “lift and separate” treatment. Lots of interesting … Read more “23,584 – tough for me”
Times Jumbo 691 – Asian elephant
Solving time 20:18 I hadn’t noticed, when calling a previous Jumbo post “African Elephant”, that the other kind appears at 30D in this puzzle. A few tricky corners here – my copy has some crossing … Read more “Times Jumbo 691 – Asian elephant”
Mephisto 2433 – Chris Feetenby
Solving time: 27 mins without Chambers, but one mistake (20A) At least on the Times club site, this puzzle was spoiled by the truncation of four clues. Here they are in full, as the site … Read more “Mephisto 2433 – Chris Feetenby”
Championship qualifier 2
Solving time 8:31 I made heavy weather of some parts of this, having to write out letters for the anagram at 10A. But there are other answers like OBLATE, ACCIDIE and INDRA where I may … Read more “Championship qualifier 2”
23,578 – shades of the cricket…
… only scoring a RUN on the very last clue (24D). Some good stuff in here, including some “essence of Times xwd”. Solving time 6:42 Across 1 THROUGH=via,comPUTing 10 BAN,JAX=”jacks” – with JERKIN as the … Read more “23,578 – shades of the cricket…”
Jumbo 690 – African elephant?
Solving time 19:05 Just under the 20 minute that seems to be my Jumbo par at the moment. Some clever stuff in here – long hidden words, and repeated words used for both anagram fodder … Read more “Jumbo 690 – African elephant?”