Author: plusjeremy

40 minutes on the nose, with one error. Today (Thursday in the US still) is the 44th anniversary of my birth. So not even my silly error can get me down!

31:03. Judging from the SNITCH, this puzzle seems more moderate than many recent Fridays. Nevertheless, some very nice clues.

71:52. Yes, I finished it. Yes, I napped for a bit in the middle of it.

70 minutes. A puzzle like this, I feel compelled to finish no matter how long it takes — and, well, this one took some time. I fell asleep slightly in the middle, but I don’t think staying awake would have made the puzzle go any quicker.

37:29. I was concerned about solving a Friday puzzle after an early morning and long day of plane travel, but I’m quite pleased with this time for what seems to be a difficult puzzle.

33:09, indicating middle-of-the-road difficulty (by normal Friday standards!). I thought this puzzle was just great. Wonderful word choices, lovely definitions which were misleading without being hopelessly vexing. I can stand harder, but I was quite happy with this.

66:52. At 41 minutes I texted vinyl, “Three left.” At 64 minutes I texted him, “Two left.” I’m good at getting stuck at the end of puzzles.

30 minutes, more or less. I solved this puzzle on the regular Times site (not the Crossword Club), so it wouldn’t accept my puzzle as correct. After checking every answer I finally used the Check Puzzle feature and discovered my “mistake”.

All this aside, I thought this was a delightful puzzle. Some fabulous definitions.

53:32. The first word of 1 across was, perhaps, a portent of things to come.

1:15:23, a gargantuan time for a very difficult puzzle, which was nevertheless very enjoyable to solve. Really the time was just about one hour, but the last 15 minutes were spent on a single clue.

Probably this puzzle hails from you-know-who. I’m getting used to his style. I was able to spot his wordplay immediately, nearly every time, but I wasn’t able to find the right synonyms.