Solving time: 3:52 Howler of the week goes to 21dn. (If in fact this is my howler then apologies in advance to setter and readers; I probably won’t be able to reply to any comments … Read more “ST 4239 (Sun 26 Aug) – Water rabies”
Category: Daily Cryptic
23691 Postscript – Congratulations Anax!
I don’t usually encourage setter-naming here, as I don’t want to amend the anonymity policy of The Times on their behalf, but just occasionally, rules can be broken. In a posting last November, I mentioned … Read more “23691 Postscript – Congratulations Anax!”
23,694 – Showboating
Nothing too challenging today – a couple of unusual words that were easy to guess from the wordplay. Solving time – 8m22s ACROSS 1 SHOW-B(lue)OAT – The word length for this should have been (4,4) … Read more “23,694 – Showboating”
23,693 – a maze of twisty little passages, all different
Solving time: 12:18 I enjoyed this puzzle. Interesting words but no particularly obscure ones, and good surfaces. Annoyingly, it took me a long time to get two easy-looking ones: the long anagram at 3D (BE … Read more “23,693 – a maze of twisty little passages, all different”
23,692 – easy enough
Solving time 6:20 Started this at high speed, filling in most of the NW and hoping for a clean sweep until I got to 6D, where I (a) looked for “catches up” to match ???S … Read more “23,692 – easy enough”
Times 23691/mixed results
Solving time: 41:30 I was doing quite well on this for the NE, SE, SW quadrants only to spend 20 minutes on the NW. And I’m from the Pacific NW – very embarrassing. Some fix-ups … Read more “Times 23691/mixed results”
23690 – eh?
Solving time of 51 minutes Quite a straightforward start to the week. There were a few things that annoyed me slightly, such as the apostrophes in 21A and 26A, but it was all pretty soluble. … Read more “23690 – eh?”
ST 4238 (Sun 19 Aug) – Chicken pox
Solving time: 20:44, one mistake (9ac) A disaster, mostly because 5dn (“An improvement on medical attention” (10)) took me nearly 15 minutes but also because having finally got there, and correctly guessed 24dn after some … Read more “ST 4238 (Sun 19 Aug) – Chicken pox”
23,688 – Deliver me from slow times
A dose of Fridayitis for me today – my slowest Friday solve in ages, at 22 minutes and a few seconds. I’m not quite sure why it took so long, but once I had worked … Read more “23,688 – Deliver me from slow times”
23,687 – riddling askant
Solving time: 11:09 I was told at last night’s drinks that we crossword bloggers should be less sycophantic. But this is a particularly good puzzle, with lots of imaginative approaches, and smooth and witty surfaces. … Read more “23,687 – riddling askant”