Author: piquet

A pleasant straightforward offering today, which I found almost as fast to complete as Monday’s this week. A handful of anagrams or compound anagrams (none of foreign words) will get you writing in circles perhaps. … Read more “Times 27951 – I’m not going to hold back the waves…”

Middle of the week, middle of the spectrum for me, this one, it’s Wednesday fare once again. A good sprinkling of anagrams, a mainstream brand name, and nothing to scare the horses, I thought. For … Read more “Times 27945 – that’s life, China.”

An ecological flavour to today’s crossword, I thought, which I found of moderate difficulty with nothing especially obscure or controversial to it. A green gemstone, an eco-charity, things festering and biodegrading nicely, and a country’s … Read more “Times 27939 – forty shades of green.”

Here I enjoyed a pleasant, nicely constructed crossword, with nothing exceptional or unknown and a full range of wordplay devices being used. The word at 19a was not known to me but easily derived and … Read more “Times 27933 – don’t trip over your sword, my Lord, eat my words.”

I really enjoyed this one. It took me about half an hour, but I was relishing the wit and subleties along the way, and going astray a couple of times before seeing the light. (Geddit?). … Read more “Times 27927 – wizard stuff.”

We bloggers are not supposed to say whether we found a certain puzzle hard, easy, or very easy, in case it discourages other less accomplished solvers or damages their self-esteem. So I won’t. I will … Read more “Times 27921 – a piece of that confection”

I found this a strange curate’s egg of a puzzle; most of it was easy to understand and parse, the rest was biffable; but there were two clues where I am not entirely happy with … Read more “Times 27915 – nightmare on Wall Street”

I buzzed through this in twenty minutes or so, going off piste a couple of times at 5d and 8d, having a grumble about 13a and being slightly surprised, but not delayed, at 23a. I … Read more “Times 27909 – we have mad cow disease, but no complaints.”

Nothing exceptional, for me, in this puzzle, apart from what I think is a clueing error in 1d (see below). 20 minutes to do and parse, then look up 8a afterwards to see who he … Read more “Times 27903 – “I’m into something good”.”

I loved this puzzle; it had, for me, the perfect mixture of interesting words, clever wordplay, only one anagram, and nothing too obscure; a couple of plants, an animal, a Greek chap, a bit of … Read more “Times 27897 – 162 filled in squares of satisfaction”