Category: Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 5:38 Being so late doing the puzzle, I decided to make a start on the tube platform, as the indicator said there was six minutes until the next train. And I finished it … Read more “Times 24,213”

Solving time: 7:40, one mistake When they put foreign phrases into the puzzle, I reckon to gain time from good memory of French and other spelling – “faute de mieux” made hay for me in … Read more “24212 – c’est plus qu’un crime, c’est une faute”

An enjoyable 19 minutes spent on a puzzle which I thought pretty original and surprisingly testing – left hand side went in quickly, right hand side much less so. It also extended my knowledge of … Read more “Times 24,211 – That Hoodoo That You Do”

Solving time: 45 mins Some easy clues to begin with, but I hit the wall at about 30 mins with embarrassing gaps in all quarters which took some time to resolve. Was it just me, … Read more “Times 24210 – “…and I dips me lid” C.J. Dennis”

Solving time: 9 mins Actually just a couple, at 10ac, but if only the Sunday Times crossword were like this every week: some outstanding clues here, especially the anagrams at 28ac, 5dn, 8dn and 13dn, … Read more “ST 4325 (Sun 19 Apr) – Three cheers”

Time taken to solve: 26 minutes. Mostly straightforward stuff requiring little special knowledge. I learnt one new book title (18d) and one new meaning of a familiar word (6d) but both were obvious from the wordplay. … Read more “Times 24208”

Solving time: 13:08 Relieved to finish in a reasonable time. There were three words I just didn’t know: 28 (MAYWEED) was a plausible name for a plant, but 23 (ZENANA) and 19 (STABILE) were bold … Read more “Times 24207”

Solving time: 10:03 This should please Jimbo more than yesterday’s, I think. Arts has three people (if you count Icarus) to science’s one (Piaget), but there’s lots of inventive wordplay and not much reliance on … Read more “Times 24206”

Solving time : 25 minutes A largely straightforward puzzle with one or two little niggles and too many weak cryptic definitions. Nothing particularly stood out for me. Across 1 TICK – two meanings 1=time, 2=irritating … Read more “Times 24,205 Little to tical my fancy”

Solving time: 40 minsMusic: Prokofiev Classical Symphony/Ivanov Caucasian Sketches, Rozhadestvensky/Moscow Philharmonic I admit I was a little nervous printing this one off at 8:01 PM EDT, but solving the first clue before the page was … Read more “Times 24204 – Dhabi Day”