Author: rolytoly

I found this quite tricky to finish off: I had four clues left at the 6 minute mark, and took another 4:30 for the 11d-13ac and 6d-19ac crossers.

A fun mix of clues today that took me just over the 10 minute mark, thanks to two minutes at the end spent trying to think of homophones of reptiles at 11d – there was some elusive (or perhaps illusive) caiman type creature that remained on the tip of my tongue. Good stuff – many thanks to Breadman!

How nice to be in our lovely new surroundings! Not the easiest today from Wurm, but with lots of effective misdirection and a broad range of clues it was very satisfying – even the anagrams seemed particularly well-constructed. I was left staring at 16ac for a while at the end which took me to 11 minutes. Many thanks to Wurm, and of course to everyone involved in creating such a great new home.

So we have a new setter today (or a new name at least): the word ‘Parkin’ has cropped up a few times in crosswords past, clued as a gingerbread or teatime snack (and completely forgotten by me). It looked like we were in for an easy one, with the first five clues going straight in, but things got trickier and I ended up a good couple of minutes over target

Towards the easier side of things today from Hurley, with a number of the clues pointing fairly unambiguously to the answer. A few seconds spent at the end on 9d and 17ac, but more because … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 2118 by Hurley”

A bit on the trickier side of things today from Teazel, with a lot of effective misdirection (for me, 10ac) and a dash or two of the less-than-obvious. I only managed four of the acrosses … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 2108 by Teazel”

A lovely puzzle from Hurley. At 9 minutes I was a minute slower than yesterday done just before, except I had one wrong at 11ac, which is what I get for trying to be too … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 2008 by Hurley”

A very pleasant puzzle of about average difficulty from Mara: I came in a notch under 9 minutes, held up briefly at the end with 18ac. It seemed like there were a lot of references … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1998 by Mara”

I spent a long time staring at my final two (5d and 10ac) before taking a break, and saw them fairly quickly on my return. So 13-ish minutes, in total, if you don’t include the … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1948 by Tracy”

Possibly a touch on the gentle side of average difficulty today. I say possibly: I seem to be solving better than usual at the minute and took 6:33, around a minute quicker than yesterday’s done … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1938 by Trelawney”