Author: piquet

My life is in chaos. Well, disarray. Thanks to a virus with the catchy epithet H5N8 – la grippe aviaire. It takes me 35 minutes – sometimes 34 – to get to or from the … Read more “Times 26589 – no duck soup here”

I see only 46% of solvers on the day in the second semi of the Championships completed this correctly. I found it a lumpy mix of facile clues, normal stuff and a couple of chewy … Read more “Times 26583 – j’ai perdu mon goose”

I presume this is puzzle one of semi-final two of the championships, although it doesn’t say so on the version I managed to get printed out. I thought it was another middle of the road … Read more “Times 26577 – motoring down the middle”

I’m not sure if this was the third puzzle in the Championships semi-finals; based on the last two weeks it ought to be, no doubt someone with a tree-based newspaper or who was there on … Read more “Times 26571 – nearly a laugh a minute?”

I’ll try not to rabbit on too much, but no parrot has ever been as sick as I feel. Aside from any personal losses, arising first from the Brexit vote and now from the most … Read more “Times 26565 – a brief distraction, ho hum.”

This one was a straightforward stroll up the nursery slopes, I thought; without rushing I had it all done and dusted in 19 minutes, ending with the NE corner. No doubt the gradients will get … Read more “Times 26559 – Championships, heat 1, puzzle 1. A gentle beginning.”

Not one of last Saturday’s tormentors, no doubt they are to come; a middle of the road puzzle for midweek. If any of the usual suspects has a PDF of the nine competition puzzles, could … Read more “Times 26553”

I found this a strange puzzle, because it offered a mixture of dead-easy quickie-type clues and much trickier ones which would have been hard to see without the checkers from the write-ins. With 1a and … Read more “Times 26547 – a melange”

Had this not been a blog-day, I might well have put this one down after half an hour, with only two-thirds of it filled in. I wasn’t particulary enjoying it, my arthritic hip was sore … Read more “Times 26541 – worth the p-pain”

I struggled to finish this one, a touch harder than usual I felt, with a couple of words (I confess) I had to go and check out having deduced, or guessed, from the wordplay. The … Read more “Times 26535 – putting the wind up US?”