Category: Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 6:04 Apart from one question mark over 23dn, much more accurate clueing than normal this week. Nothing too difficult, apart from a couple of less well known names, one of which (the artist … Read more “ST 4265 (Sun 24 Feb) – Watts his name”

Time taken to solve: About 40 minutes, half of which was spent on 21 across. A very enjoyable puzzle with lots of clues that read really well. I thought I was in for a record … Read more “23849 – Another scorpion”

Solving time : 45 minutes, with one break, and a lot of deliberation, and there’s two I’m not 100% on. Thanks for the emails and comments about my new Listener blog. I’ll be updating it … Read more “Times 23848. Don’t drink and solve”

Solving time 7:08 A good puzzle which feels like the kind where experience pays off in solving time. Red biddy has definitely been seen in the last few months, and I think track shoe made … Read more “23,847 – it’s that red stuff again”

Solving time : 30 minutes Some references to times past and a Royalist flavour to this straightforward but enjoyable puzzle. If you’ve never had the pleasure of using a Roneo machine you’re unlikely to know … Read more “Times 23846 Roneo, Roneo, wherefore art thou Roneo”

Solved in 33 mins, which I was pretty pleased with. I didn’t have a very good time last week – three puzzles which I didn’t finish without resorting to dictionary or web.I thought this might … Read more “23845 – doctors and actors”

Solving time: 15 mins I had a bit of a shocker on this, especially on 27dn (BOWL) and in the top left where I got stuck on 1ac (STALWART), 2dn (ANIMAL) and 9ac (DRIFTERS?). Clarification … Read more “ST 4264 (Sun 17 Feb) – Bowled out”

Solving time – 16:35 (with one answer missing).  Well, I managed to fill the grid reasonably quickly (except for 27a) but a lot of answers went in as semi-confident guesses as I didn’t understand some … Read more “23,843 – floundered”

Solving time: 17:44 Found this rather tricky. Some odd words cropping up. I don’t know if I have come across ETCHANT before, so having such interesting wordplay was a challenge. And LOGE (box) and PETER … Read more “Times 23,842”

Solving time:23 minutes when unwisely solved late last night. I thnk it should have taken about 15. Lots of fiendish clues – it was quite hard to find a few to miss out. Given the … Read more “23,841 – pangrammatic poser”