Author: piquet

Another Wednesday which I don’t think will take us far into the orange zone on SNITCH, with some fairly obvious or biffable answers – even if the wordplay was often intricate and very clever. If … Read more “Times 27093 – no acrobatics required”

Did this is 20 minutes in my currently daily taxi to / from Bordeaux, on a nice smooth French autoroute, no potholes here (although it is péage). The second half of 18a was the only … Read more “Times 27087 – Horryd please vote for 2d as word of the Day”

Amusing, middle of the road puzzle with nothing too controversial and an absence of obscure plants, antelopes, primates, Muses, and amino acids; just some nice words. I don’t have a time for it because I … Read more “Times 27081 – Churchill’s canine tormentor.”

A sub 15 minute time on this, IMO the easiest of the three qualifiers this year. Plenty of scope for biffing, although some of the definitions are quite erudite, e.g. 10a, 21d. There is one … Read more “Times 27069 – TCC third qualifier published 20 June”

After Monday’s stroll with the SNITCH at only 70, and yesterday’s at 71, you’d think I’d be in for a brain buster. But no, I had all but two of these clues sorted in 14 … Read more “Times 27075 – Is it still Monday?”

The day of the last of the TCC qualifiers, so we have an alternative online, from 20 November 1985. (The blog for the Qualifier III, 27069, will, all being well, be published here on 28 … Read more “Times 201185 – Happy Birthday, Windows.”

Looking at the SNITCH of recent months, I see that Wednesdays vie with Fridays for offering the sternest tests; apart from the ‘yesteryear’ challenges which crop up occasionally (another one next week I expect), there … Read more “Times 27063 – cunninger than a Baldric Cunning Plan”

By the time you read this, if you can be bothered, I hope to be restored to binocular vision – of a quality I haven’t ‘seen’ for sixty years – and the ‘where’s yer parrot’ … Read more “Times 27057 – solvitur festinato cum laude hodie”

Another one of those puzzles, for me, where you struggle along and take an age, then afterwards reviewing the clues you wonder why you found it hard. Perhaps I just wasn’t on the wavelength, or … Read more “Times 27051 – you need to be full of brightness”

I thought this one was a degree or two more difficult than the first qualifier, it took me longer, 26 minutes, so I’d have exactly 20 minutes remaining to finish the third one and put … Read more “Times 27039 – 2nd TCC Qualifier – Bulgaria revisited”