Author: Verlaine

I took exactly 9 minutes over this puzzle, which I thought was perfectly pitched Friday fare: none of the wordplay was particularly difficult to decrypt, but equally the solver was credited with enough intelligence to … Read more “Times 26,453: Sailing The Sees (And Teas)”

I made heavy weather of this puzzle, almost 20 minutes worth of it, after a terrible day in which I wrote my entire TLS blog only to lose the whole thing on hitting the submit … Read more “Times 26,447: Exit Strategies”

There have been some pretty gruelling TLS workouts in recent memory, so I was pleased to discover that this was “just” a straightforward cryptic crossword requiring a moderate breadth of literary GK to tackle. Thanks … Read more “TLS Crossword 1128 by Talos (June 3, 2016) – Like Catching Your Favourite Uncle Crossword Blogging”

An elegantly straightforward puzzle to conclude the week; perhaps they thought your blogger might be a bit the worse for wear after the England-Wales match yesterday (and in fact there exists photographic evidence on Facebook … Read more “Times 26,441: She Gets Hungry For Puzzles At Eight”

In my typically drink-impaired midnight hour, I found this a *relatively* straightforward Friday puzzle to cap a week of straightforward puzzles, coming in a little under the 10 minute mark, but maybe I was just … Read more “Times 26,435: The Peeping Tom’s Tale”

What a brilliant crossword this was – one of those where almost every clue would be an immediate candidate for COD in most other puzzles. In fact I challenged myself to try and find anything … Read more “Times 26,429: Apples And Pears (And Plums Everywhere)”

Be careful what you wish for, I suppose: at Tuesday’s Sloggers & Betters, as always happens when I’m a couple of sheets to the wind, I wheeled out my opinion that if you haven’t learned … Read more “Times 26,423: Either These Pangrams Go, Or I Do”

Smarting from ulaca‘s quip that, based on my performances earlier this week, I am the John Aldridge of crosswords (with my limited knowledge of sports I’m not sure who that is, to be honest – … Read more “Times 26,417: Sir Topham The Morning To You”

What a privilege to be allowed to blog this special 400th-anniversary-of-the-great-man’s-passing Shakespeare puzzle; a privilege which I have sorely abused by posting it a couple of days late. All I can say in my defence … Read more “TLS Crossword 1122 by Praxiteles (April 22, 2016): Sooner Or Bardolater”

A second night in a row solving after an evening out on the sauce – well, now that the nice weather is back, drinking in beer gardens is kind of the law – but my … Read more “Times 26,411: A Glittering Display”