Author: ulaca

53 minutes for me, with five of those spent on the unknown revloutionary chap. A little bit of everything here: Greek, British slang, British toff-speak, British northern towns, misenumeration from the good folk at The … Read more “Times 25647 – A little bit of this and a little bit of that”

A very nice, if somewhat challenging, pangramatic puzzle with a distinctly retro feel. I tip my titfer to the setter. Across 1 LEVIATHAN – alive* + THAN[e]. 6 LARGE – spotlight is GLARE and we … Read more “Times 25629 – Meaty Monday”

What would Morse have thought of this? Nothing to distract him from the tedium of staving off adoring females and keeping up his lugubrious aspect 24/7. 16 minutes for me, so who knows what records … Read more “Times 25623 – Oh, Lewis…”

40 minutes, so slightly meatier than your average Monday. Since I’m reading Gargantua and Pantagruel at the moment, I was pleased to see Rabelais pop up. A couple of centuries later, across the Channel, he … Read more “Times 25611- Welcome to the world of Master John Thursday”

That is, counting Saturday and Sunday’s, which were both very chewy. Several unusual items of vocab in this one, and some canny cluing, took my time to 1’18”. While the NW put up the most … Read more “Times 25599 – A Hat-trick of Hard Ones”

Nothing much to hold folk up here, so long as non-sporty types are sufficently clued up on their sweaty types in the scrum. I did this online at home while Typhoon Usagi petered out and … Read more “Times 25587 – One from the Nursery Slopes”

Another gentle Monday offering, with quite a few going in from the literals. No standouts and no complaints. 22 minutes, but one wrong. Across 1 DISTINGUISHED – extinguished with the ex replaced by D + … Read more “Times 25575 – Thank ‘Eaven for Leetul Pearls”

Times crosswords don’t get much more straightforward than this. Indeed, I was able to rack up my third in a week under 30 minutes (including Saturday’s), so expect PBs and possibly clean sweeps from under … Read more “Times 25569 – Not one to sort out the men from the neutrinos”

A challenging puzzle with many elegant surfaces and misleading devices. 72 minutes of hard, pleasurable but not unblemished, graft for me. Across 1 VISCOUNT – tougher to parse than to get: it’s V (as in … Read more “Times 25551 – Not Your Average Monday”

Some easy ones, some inchoate chestnuts, one obscure horse race – a farrago of a puzzle for this sunny Monday morning. 36 minutes. On edit – I’m so angry I could not only write a letter … Read more “Times 25539 – A Mixed Bag”