Author: Verlaine

Totally called it: after a week of fairly relaxed cryptics chez the Times, along comes one that is pretty tough by any standards, with some quite non-obvious wordplay and tough vocabulary including two words that … Read more “Times 27,341: Dot Your Wyes ‘n’ Grit Your Teeth?”

I didn’t find this particularly difficult, though my time wasn’t blazing-Monday-fast either; but I’d certainly rate it on the gentle side, with all the definitions being entirely straightforward and most of the wordplay involving quite … Read more “Times 27,335: You Gotta Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Solve A Clue Or Two”

I didn’t find this puzzle particularly hard, but I did enjoy it, with its assured control of cryptic devices and a bit of wickedness to some of its choices: I particularly liked the almost invisible … Read more “Times 27,329: Confidence Is A Preference For The Habitual Solveur”

With hindsight there was nothing too intricate about the cluing here, which is just as well as I tackled it after an Anchor Steam Beer (Made In San Francisco since 1896), but there was a … Read more “Times 27,323: Sandwich Watch”

Woof, this one felt proper Friday hard, and this coming after a week of pretty hard puzzles. To qualify that, about half of it was rather straightforward, but then you’ve got the explosion in a … Read more “Times 27,317: I Want My Mummy!”

My comfortable 4m48 time for this one, after some decidedly chewy numbers early in the week, makes me think that the current management is sticking to its guns about its recent assertion that there is … Read more “Times 27,311: Undercooked Overcooked Gangling Free”

I didn’t take too much time over this excellent crossword, under 8 minutes, but a couple of the clues turned out to be pretty tough to parse afters – I’m sure you good people will … Read more “Times 27,305: A B C D E F G H, I Got A Gal”