Author: william_j_s

Nothing to trouble seasoned quickie solvers here, and a couple of cryptic definitions to get us novices thinking laterally. I thought many of the definition parts of clues were neat and well disguised, especially 16ac, … Read more “Quick Cryptic Number 234 by Orpheus”

Sorry for the delay in posting – I completely forgot to blog this last night and have had a heck of a morning. Roll on the weekend. This was a pleasant and straightforward puzzle with … Read more “Quick Cryptic Number 224 by Mara”

I really enjoyed this puzzle, which I found to be slightly more difficult than average. It just seems polished and neat, with many words used in unfamiliar and interesting ways. The material (that’s appeared here … Read more “Quick Cryptic Number 214 by Izetti”

Nothing too unusual or obscure here. Even if the geography or mythology are unfamiliar, the wordplay leaves very little room for error. I thought many of the down clues were elegant and witty, 3, 5, … Read more “Quick Cryptic Number 205 by Mara”

I’m back on the blog after a bit of a hiatus; thanks to Mohn for giving me a holiday two weeks ago. I found this a tricky puzzle to get into, with particular difficulty in … Read more “Quick Cryptic Number 195 by Teazel”

I’m standing in for mohn today. A mixed bag of predominantly straightforward clues, which required the dredging-up of one or two half-forgotten bits of vocabulary. Lots of nice surfaces to throw you off the scent, … Read more “Quick Cryptic Number 176 by Tracy”

A puzzle of intermediate difficulty, which has plenty of inventive crypticness and tongue-in-cheek definitions. There’s nothing unfair about any of these clues, but a decent amount of lateral thinking is required for some! I was … Read more “Quick Cryptic Number 175 by Teazel”

This is quite a tricky puzzle, in my opinion, which makes use of some archaic and unusual words. I got almost all the way there before having to resort to the internet for 18dn. It’s … Read more “Quick Cryptic Number 165 by Izetti”

A teasing crossword to round off an excellent week of quickies. For me, the recent level of difficulty has been just right – some new vocabulary fairly clued and some chewy wordplay for more obvious … Read more “Quick Cryptic Number 155 by Dazzler”

A bit of Friday fun, which took me much longer to blog than to solve. Many of the surface meanings are neat and misleading, but not so devious as to throw us off the scent … Read more “Quick Cryptic Number 145 by Rongo”