Category: Daily Cryptic

Solving time : 17 minutes, so for me the hardest of the week, and it looks like one with a few deliberately thorny and trappy answers, including one device (21 down) that I’ve seen a … Read more “Times 24243 – sad songs say so coronach”

Solving time: 10:41 Harder than the last couple of days, but not the stinker I was fearing – the knowledge side is pretty straightforward. Last answers in were 13 and 19. 1A, 17, 21, 24, … Read more “Times 24242”

Solving time : 12 minutes As easy and boring a puzzle as you’re likely to find in the Times. Three slight obscurities: the Catholic Court; the US fish; and the left over food. One small … Read more “Times 24241 A Humdrum Affair”

Solving time: 28 minutes Music: Mahler, Symphony #3, Horenstein/LPO A puzzle of moderate difficulty, a gentle trot to start the week. There are a lot of anagrams here, which always makes things easy. I admit … Read more “Times 24240 – “As the Miller told his tale….”

Solving time: 10:15 Not one for the purists this week but nothing too outrageous. I think there might be a misprint in 16dn but it may just be a meaning of the word (PORTFOLIO) with … Read more “ST 4330 (Sun 24 May) – Case study”

Solving time: About another 10% added to the time for No. 2, which took me about 25% longer than No.1. Others found 2 easier than 1 and just might have found this even easier. Four … Read more “2009 Championship Qualifier No.3”

Solving time: 14.30 A medium difficulty puzzle, for me at any rate. I got off to a racing start when 1a went in at a glance – always encouraging – but this soon slowed to … Read more “Times Crossword 24238”

Solving time: 9:46 I had never heard of ROCHET at 12A, and was close to guessing POCHET, on the basis that “going to POT” is somehow related to “decline”. Other words that I knew but … Read more “Times 24,237”

Solving time: 8:17 A bit harder than yesterday, with some fairly intricate wordplays. For me it used a few too many “before your very eyes” methods – we have two whole answers which are ‘first … Read more “24236”

An undemanding 12 minutes in this household; greatest pause for thought given by two words where I wasn’t entirely sure of all the possible meanings but deduced it was plausible that the secondary ones existed … Read more “Times 24,235”