Category: Daily Cryptic

Solving time: About 50 mins An amiable romp with some challenging clues (well, they challenged me) and some old favourites; a fitting puzzle for the last Monday in May. I’m not going to speculate on … Read more “Times 24234 – I wonder what became of all the Rockers and the Mods?”

Solving time: several days. Most of this fell out quickly but I couldn’t get 27ac (PHILTRE) or 22dn (PROPER) in the solving window available and meant to come back to them later, but forgot. As … Read more “ST 4329 (Sun 17 May) – Philtre trip”

Time taken to solve: Off the scale. I resorted to aids after an hour. I might have appreciated this excellent tough puzzle more if it hadn’t been my day to blog. As it was I’m afraid … Read more “Times 24232 – Worst Nightmare”

Solving time : Did not record – couldn’t get enough time in one sitting to get this finished, but I hope it was a difficult one anyway – there is one answer that I am … Read more “May. 20th, 2009”

Solving time: 7:53 For some reason I expected a difficult puzzle today, but this was pretty straightforward – or suited me well. I started slowly, missing the hidden word first time, but got started with … Read more “Times 24230”

Solving time : 25 minutes Nothing terribly difficult here but one or two obscurities such as TORII and PERSEPOLIS with a trip down memory lane in the form of GENEVIEVE that overseas solvers may struggle … Read more “Times 24229 the chicken returned and became a double-crosser!”

Solving time: 22 minutes Music: Delius, North Country Sketches, Groves/RPO A walk in the park, which is a mighty good thing because I had a very exhausting weekend, clocking over 22 hours of work time … Read more “Times 24228 – Hold the Line!”

Solving time: 8:25 Not the best puzzle this week with lots of loose clues and crosswordese. I have queries at 13ac, 19dn and 21dn. * = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’. Across 1 INHERITANCE; … Read more “ST 4328 (Sun 10 May) – Antiestablishmentarianism”

Solving time: 12.14 One of those worrying puzzles where I was left at the end with three completely unconnected blanks – 19A, 6D and the 18D/23A duo in the SE corner. I’m still a bit … Read more “Times Crossword 24226”

Solving time: 16:41 – with one wrong (4D) This felt like hard work, but rewarding. After the first run through I had a scattering of answers and a complete blank in the North West corner. … Read more “Times 24225”