Author: Verlaine

The cowboy at 9A today put me in mind of Bernard Cribbins for some reason, but fortunately this was more a case of “one each end and steady as we go” than “we was getting … Read more “Times 26,051: Right Said Fred”

Well, this broke my run of ~12 minute Friday solves in fine style: in the end I squeaked in just seconds before the 25 mark. I thought this was a doozy of a puzzle; just … Read more “Times 26,045: Womble Rampage”

12 minutes 30 seconds on the clock, which seems to be pretty par for me and a Friday puzzle recently, but sadly a DNF as I’d BIFD in “FRONT” at 2D. FRONT is clearly something … Read more “Times 26,039: Going Dotty”

Another Friday puzzle with a few speed bumps, but nothing to really grind a solver to a dead halt: I finished inside 11 and a half minutes, which’ll do me. I started in with 16A … Read more “Times 26,033: Bearded Like The Pard”

A perforce abbreviated blog from me this morning: I’m about to head off to the second day of a two day PHP conference (not to be confused with a PCP conference) and time is in … Read more “Times 26,027: Much To My Arrondissement”

(Alarm bells went off for the above online “Dante quotation”, as I couldn’t find any immediate trace of it in the original Italian, or any sense of its origin, but it seemed too appropriate to … Read more “Times 26,021: “The Wisest Are The Most Annoyed At The Loss Of Time””

A puzzle very worthy of its Friday slot, I thought. A couple of clues (4D, 6D) went in in short order, and this coupled with the punslinging likes of 11A and 23A made me think … Read more “Times 26,015: Eyeless In Gaza…”

Extremely straightforward today I thought – resulting in a near-PB for me of 8m 47s. Don’t know about the rest of you but I would always rather have more stumbling blocks thrown in my path, … Read more “Times 26,009: Thomas Love Peacock’s Holiday Home”

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery,” said Micawber, and so it goes with crosswords too. … Read more “Times 26,003: Crosseyed And Painless”

At the risk of turning into a stuck record: I thought this was yet another unimpeachable Friday puzzle. Pitched at just the right level of challenge (easy entry points, but not without a few real … Read more “Times 25,997: Undercover Cops”