Category: Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 39 minutes Music: Beethoven, Piano Sonatas, Backhaus This puzzle shows that you should not imagine you can finish quickly until you actually do so. Although I had all but the southeast corner done … Read more “Times 24587 – Otter chaos!”

Solving time: 10:35 I got bogged down in this, struggling with ASTERN/TITMOUSE and CALICO/BREECH-LOADING. This was much a better puzzle than usual – there were some excellent clues with very good surface readings, as well … Read more “ST 4388 (Sun 4 Jul) – Into the breech”

About two-thirds of it filled in before I had to start looking things up, but even though I completed it easily enough there are 4 or 5 answers put in without full (or any) understanding. … Read more “TLS 837 (June 18th)”

I was interrupted twice while doing this one so can’t give an exact time, but I would guess it took 15-20 minutes. The SE corner went in at lightning speed, the NE and SW went … Read more “Times Crossword 24585”

Got up groggy after staying up late to watch Spain beat Germany and found the going tough at first. But once I had a few crossing letters, the rest became progressively easier. On the whole, … Read more “Times 24584 – The Vale of Tempe”

Solving time: 18:13 A pretty difficult puzzle for me, and a slightly jammy correct solution (see 27). There are some difficult words here but also some easy clues, so my guess is that times will … Read more “24583”

25 minutes, which felt a little slower than it should have been, but may be explained by the combination of what I thought was a reasonably tough, but perfectly fair, puzzle, and the enervating summer … Read more “Times 24,582 –”

Solving Time: 25 minutes I would have said this was an absolute doddle, had I not scribbled 11d in so fast that PAINTING came out PIANTING which turned Neville Cardus into Frederick Wildus (not a … Read more “Times 24581 – And the band played on”

Solving time: about 5 mins Unfortunately I have only a few minutes to write this blog. This is a pity, because it was an excellent puzzle whose compiler I’m fairly confident I could identify. There … Read more “ST 4387 (Sun 27 Jun) – Bigmouth strikes again”

Solving time: 30:00 I used the whole 30 minutes for this puzzle because there were a number of answers I wasn’t completely sure about, but in the end all my first guesses turned out to … Read more “TLS 836 (11 June)”