I would have to say that this puzzle is very, very good without being excessively tricky. Everything is completely fair, you just have to take what the setter says and run with it. I tried to speed up by putting in the easy answers and biffing the rest, but to no avail.
Author: vinyl1
Quick Cryptic 3187 by Izetti – Ouch!
A fairly easy puzzle, but the blog was anything but easy. See within.
Mephisto 3408 – You’ve got me, Paul!
This was quite an easy one from Paul, except for one small point. The answers are mostly quite accessible, even if some of the wordplay is a bit convoluted.
Times Cryptic Jumbo 1764 – Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia!
I managed to solve this one readily enough, spread out over several sessions. The second long answer is not used in the USA, and I had to get a number of crossers before concluding what the answer must be.
Times Cryptic 29419 – Just a bit tricky
This puzzle should not have been hard, but I was left with four unsolved at 15 minutes, and I struggled mightily with those.
Mephisto 3406 – At the Edinburgh rave!
Robert Teuton’s puzzle is a bit more difficult than usual, with a number of interesting words. It took me a long time to finish, and I went on many wild-goose chases without catching any wild geese.
Times 29407 – Yes, catching some flak
I did not find this as easy as a typical Monday. I did start quickly, but I was left at the end with a series of interconnected missing answers across the middle of my printout.
A Special Crossword for a Special Day
What special day, you may ask? Well, you’ll have to solve the puzzle to find out. You can find the interactive version here, and a PDF to print out here.
This puzzle was created to celebrate this special day by some of the administrators and bloggers here at Times for the Times. We hope you have as much fun solving it as we did creating it.
If you open this post, you will find the standard puzzle blog, only the answers are initially not given and the clue parsings are not yet supplied. When you have completed the puzzle, and are writing your comment, you are invited pick one or two clues that have not yet been discussed, and blog them in the style of your favourite blogger. I will copy your blog entries into the blog until it is complete.
Mephisto 3404 – “Picasso leans out the window…”
A Mephisto from John Grimshaw that was not that difficult, and for once many of the answer words were words I knew.
Times 29395 – “Woke up this morning with light in my eyes….”
This was pretty much an ordinary Monday puzzle, with a few clever constructions that are starting to creep in, along with one or two rather loose constructions.