Author: plusjeremy

DNF (but close to 90 minutes). I have few words that can express the experience of having wrestled with this puzzle. I found this very, very difficult, barely putting in a single answer in 25 minutes. Perhaps I was just off the wavelength, but I think not. I can’t fathom how the setter was able to hide their meaning so cleverly.

30:32, a time which includes a short nap. Let me make clear that the nap in no way reflects the quality of the puzzle: I found this to be a nice challenge, a tasteful mix of easier and more difficult clues.

35:27. Distinctly off the wavelength here, and I had the sense throughout that this was a particularly British puzzle.

25:08. Not the most strenuous puzzle on the whole, but there were some very cleverly-worded clues that had me scratching my beard for several minutes at a time.

48:28. Laughably off the wavelength here. Nearly gave up but I had nothing better to do than to pound my brain against these clues until I got every last letter!

19:01. With my level of energy tonight, this was the sort of puzzle I was hoping for: not too easy, not too hard. Some longer ones were biffable, yet others I had to work out carefully from the wordplay.

DNF, my first in many moons. I have no idea if this puzzle was easier or more difficult, because I had to solve it one clue at a time, then close the window and tend to my children who were running around the apartment as if they were chickens with their heads cut off. (My five-year-old is reading this as I type it and indignantly disagrees with my characterization.)

16:44. This was a solid puzzle which gave me several smiles but no problems. Why should I be disappointed with that? I’m not, and it’s not the setter’s fault, but I realized that I tend to brace myself for a gut punch on Fridays, and this certainly wasn’t that! So, as much as we all like to be made to suffer now and again, I hope you could look past that and enjoy this lovely puzzle on its own merits.

36:40. I found this quite difficult, although several times I had the correct answer, rejected it, only discovering later that I’d been correct. The lower-right corner was particularly tricky.

21:31. Often a puzzle will be obviously easy or hard. This was not one of those puzzles for me. It started very easy and I thought it might be one of my fastest solves yet. But then things got more difficult, and I don’t know if that reflects my fatigue or the true nature of the puzzle. In any case, I finished in a decent time, although some clues I didn’t fully parse while solving.