Category: Daily Cryptic

Solving time : 30 minutes There’s quite a lot of odd pieces of knowledge required for this one . Whilst doing the blog I found myself repeatedly referring to Wiki to check dates and facts … Read more “Times 24,193 Meet Benjamin Twain Franklin”

Solving time: 31 mins This is my final post as the regular Monday blogger. So thanks and farewell, although I’ll still pop in and say hello.I’ve been doing this for about two-and-a-half years and it’s … Read more “Times 24,192 – cheers”

Solving time: 3:24 Pretty good this week. The anagram at 28ac would be my pick of the bunch. * = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’. Across 1 PRO + PROSITION – I hesitated here … Read more “ST 4322 (Sun 29 Mar)/Second guess”

This first qualifier has about the same degree of difficulty as a normal weekday Times puzzle; in fact, a tad on the easy side. I found more difficulty reading the 6 point font than solving … Read more “Times Crossword Championship 2009 – 1st Qualifier”

Solving time: 22.33. I struggled dreadfully with this despite being fairly lucky with the vocabulary – I knew the relatively unusual GOPAK, DREYFUS, NAAFI and MENSHEVIST, so I don’t really have much excuse except the … Read more “Times Crossword 24190”

Solving time: 13:54 I did better than yesterday, when I was stumped by the cricket references. It could have been faster if I had spotted 1A sooner, but although I was expecting it to mean … Read more “Times 24189”

Solving time: 10:38 Held up for a while at the end by 29, where was looking for ‘construction kit’ wordplay rather than a second def., and 5A which I’ve only just understood after much fruitless … Read more “Times 24188 – if in doubt, think cricket!”

Twenty minutes, with the longer answers giving most trouble for some reason. Q0-E6-D6 Across 1 SAGA – Francoise Sagan without the ‘n’. 9 ROTTWEILER – ROTTER around Kurt WEIL. 10 ODER – gOoDyEaRs. 11 UTMOST … Read more “Times 24187 – A Low Blow?”

25:44 .. Quite tricky in parts, but plenty of satisfying moments. I only realised after agreeing to step in and blog this that I couldn’t untangle the wordplay for 5 down. Answers on a postcard, … Read more “Times 24,186 (Mar 30th) – Kingdom for a Norse”

Solving time: 5:43 This would have been quicker if I’d known the name at 1/29/19dn instead of having to work it out from the crossing letters! Whether Mr Hopkins’ output was any good or not … Read more “ST 4321 (Sun 22 Mar) – Metre reading”