Author: rolytoly

A really enjoyable puzzle from Flamande. I came in around 15 mins, so maybe a bit harder than average. I came a bit of a cropper at 21ac, happily bunging in “resort” for “reorganise religious … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 638 by Flamande”

Another lovely puzzle from Izetti, this. Unfortunately I made a complete hash of it: two non-entries and what turned out to be a mistake after 20 minutes. “Putech” for 1ac definitely didn’t look like a … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 628 by Izetti”

I enjoyed this puzzle – some novel clues and lots of nice surface readings. Within the bounds of average difficulty, I’d say, almost coming witin 2 minutes of my target 10 mins. I particularly liked … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 618 by Izetti”

A pleasant solve this, towards the easier end – I was 15 mins yesterday, and about half that time today. A little bit 8ac, even, if you’ve been doing cryptics for a while, as a … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 608 by Hawthorn”

A really nice puzzle, towards the harder end of the spectrum. I did yesterday’s just before this, and took just over twice as long today at 16 mins, so on a made-up scale of difficulty … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 598 by Teazel”

A tough but rewarding puzzle, with the left hand side taking a bit of work. I don’t recall seeing the grid layout before – 11ac and 18ac could both be completed without so much as … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 588 by Orpheus”

A nice offering from Dazzler, this. I found it about as close to ‘average’ difficulty as I could pinpoint, whatever that might mean what with all the different wavelengths floating around. I’m not sure how … Read more “Quick Cryptic No 578 by Dazzler”

I don’t know about you, but I found this tough today, particularly the west side. It was a Did Not Finish, as I gave up a bit shy of the half-hour mark with one left … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No. 568 by Izetti”

I found this a good bit harder today. Coming in at 20 minutes or so, and after an especially speedy Mon-Wed, it pretty much doubled my aggregate for the rest of the week. There was … Read more “Quick Cryptic 558 by Hurley”

This is only Hawthorn’s third outing in the Quick Cryptics, the other two appearing in January and March this year, and I found it a joy to do. I had about 8 little ticks beside … Read more “Quick Cryptic 548 by Hawthorne”