Author: Verlaine

Friends, Latinists, Yorkshiremen, lend me your ears. It may not have escaped your notice that I had been a little jaded, verging on sniffy, about the Friday crosswords I’d been blogging of late. But I … Read more “Times 26,513: The Noel Gallagher of Notting Hill”

Hello, I’m back, did I miss anything, did you miss me? The better part of a week in Amsterdam, mostly crossword-free, has blunted my abilities rather, and so I took a whole ten minutes over … Read more “Times 26,501: Llamrei or Hengroen”

Very decent puzzle to round out the week I thought; once again not the hardest of the week, and I didn’t have much trouble getting it done inside my 10 minute target, but there were … Read more “Times 26,495: William Blake’s 7”

Another Friday, another rather easy puzzle by (the increasingly obviously apocryphal) Friday standards. I don’t think I’m having the best of weeks but finished this inside 400 seconds without breaking a sweat, and I see … Read more “TImes 26,489: Familiarity Breeds Content”

It might be that I’d recently finished blogging an inevitably more evocative TLS puzzle – just scroll down a bit if you want to check that out – but I found this a little bland … Read more “Times 26,483: Bang! Shake-Shake-Shake The Slang”

If anyone’s not doing the TLS Crossword because it’s too onerous compared to the regular cryptic… this fine puzzle from Myrtilus is just the kind of offering to prove they’ve gotten the wrong end of … Read more “TLS Crossword 1134 by Myrtilus (July 15, 2016): Dunkin’ Donuts”

I was catastrophically drunk for this one, post a nice sloshy evening out at the Greenwich Comedy Festival; and not the good, confidence-boosted, clues-flying-in-on-autopilot drunk, but the barely able to see the screen or find … Read more “Times 26,477: Let Them Eat Clues”

Hello again gridmates, did you miss me? My recovery from four days in a tent in Suffolk with only a ten-pack of pre-mixed gin & tonic cans and a jar of crunchy peanut butter for … Read more “Times 26,471: Back Once Again With The Ill Behaviour”

This seemed very straightforward for a Friday – though perhaps non-classicists might have paused marginally longer over 5dn and 16dn, I don’t know. Straightforward or not, it still took me over the 10 minutes mark, … Read more “Times 26,459: Hong Kong Phooey”