Category: Daily Cryptic

Competition-level stuff. I hope you solved more of it than I did.

  A much appreciated puzzle completed (mostly parsed) in 23.12, which seems to be about par for me on blogging Thursdays. A lot of great surfaces inviting (possibly controversial) commentary, and as far as I … Read more “29290 Mine’s A Good Attempt.”

A more straightforward Wednesday this week.

A puzzle of two halves.

My solve was held back by over-confident mistakes.    Seeing that 1 across was obvious, I started writing in obvious answers which were not, in fact, the correct answers.

97:47. An embarrassing performance. I got through a good chunk of it in 20 minutes, but there were five or so clues at the upper-right corner of the grid that were very difficult for me. I spent possibly 15 minutes on the last clue, thinking it was extraordinarily difficult. It turned out to be a sitter. I blame it on the root canal I had this morning…

Time taken: 9:15. Although that is a shade below my average time, a look at the early leaderboard makes me think I can declare this one an official Tricky Thursday.

I’m usually one to praise the setter for his work, but I have to say I wasn’t a big fan of this one.

I got off to a great start at the top of the grid but then slowed down drastically.

Definitely tougher than standard Monday fare.