Author: ulaca

Just the bare bones of a blog today, as I am suffering from a lurgy. This one took me around 40 minutes and has some very nice stuff. If you have queries, please ask, and … Read more “Times 27481 – Under the wether”

With its weird exercise routine (‘a household phrase’ in the 1920s, as Pinter puts it) and its Irish lake isle, this is by no mean your average Monday offering, taking me in excess of 40 … Read more “Times 27469 – Not stuff you’d find Marvin, Borgnine and Bronson countenancing, methinks”

I don’t know about you, but I am especially inclined to take umbrage against people who broadly belong to what I conceive of as my side. Being somewhat right of centre (except in an online … Read more “Times 27457 – As Woke as Piers Morgan?”

Tricky for a Monday this. I staggered along until I was done by 25a, where I made the schoolboy mistake of forgetting that a certain Kipling poem is the cruciverbal equivalent of a Haggard novel. … Read more “Times 27445 – If the poet doesn’t get you, the rod will”

A tricky fishlet, which required the solver to have some knowledge of the Cheshire/Lancashire boundary that was, or to rely on a lucky punt (or, indeed, to actually know the finned youngster), provides the only … Read more “Times 27433 – Sting in the scale?”

This was, I think, a rather unMondayish offering, with some interesting vocabulary (if tending to the cruciveralesque, perhaps), a minor prophet from the Good Book, a relatively famous Roman playwright (they are all pretty non-famous … Read more “Times 27421 – God knows, they need all the publicity they can geth”

Yes, this was pretty straightforward – the type of puzzle to have our esteemed Friday blogger working hard to keep his emotions in check after completing the thing in a paltry four minutes or so. … Read more “Times 27409 – A Typical Friday Puzzle?”

Some of you reading this may remember two time-travelling tales I was importuned to bring you a while back. While those of us who were privy to the remarkable events of those days knew that … Read more “Times 27397 – The Last Savages?”

Welcome from sunny Milos – product of 100 volcanic eruptions, supplier of a quarter of the world’s cat litter and home to the extraordinary Eleonora’s falcon. This was, on the whole, I would say, a … Read more “Times 27385 – ‘Armless Fun”

Kαλως ηρθατε from sunny Naxos, where me and the missus are having a well-deserved rest away from the stresses of Hong Kong, reminding ourselves in the land where democracy was hatched just how far the … Read more “Times 27373 – I fear the Geeks, even when they bring Gifs”