Author: Verlaine

I made a 15-minute meal of this, a lot of that due to having an alternative answer in at 4dn, which made the NHO 11ac much too hard to spot. There were some easy clues … Read more “Times 27,917: Taken Down A Peg Or Two”

A dreaded pink square for me in what wasn’t, otherwise, too testing a crossword despite potentially tricky vocab crossing like 6ac/8dn. I bunged “MEALINESS” straight in at 14dn on the assumption that it referred to … Read more “Times 27,911: Vegan-Unfriendly”

I got bogged down in the top half of this puzzle, particularly the NE where Casals was a piece of GK too far for me, resulting in a long trawl of Cawalt, Casamb, Catang, Cagalo… … Read more “Times 27,905: Pursued By A Bear”

A quality Friday puzzle, this, that kept me busy for the full 10 minutes ending in the 1dn/10ac double bill in the NE corner. Some exciting North American, capital city and Cockney solecism content: I … Read more “Times 27,899: Robots Need Love Too”

I didn’t race through this *or* find it particularly onerous for a Friday, though there were a few unknowns and MERs that slowed me down a tad. I mostly liked the classicksy references to Homer, … Read more “Times 27,893: Here’s a 1ac… Wear More Toppers”

This didn’t take long to polish off with a lot of answers being what I expected from a first glance at the clues, although honourable mention to the SW corner for being today’s trickiest, with … Read more “Times 27,887: Bunfight at the O.K. Tea Rooms”

Super puzzle that kept me busy for almost 10 minutes, partly due to me making a rod for my own back by bunging in an optimistic SPACE BAR at 9ac; 14ac also took a while … Read more “Times 27,881: War of Words”

I didn’t find this a pushover, but more to the exotic vocabulary choices rather than anything especially devious about the cluing: the parsings below are largely straightforward. CASCARA went in early but I was rather … Read more “Times 27,875: He Floats In The Air With X, Ys and Zs”