Category: Daily Cryptic

Solving time 12:25 Seems like quite a tricky puzzle judging from the number of clues I decided to write about, though two blind alleys followed at 14 and 17 made it slower than it should … Read more “23602 – we’re in the wordplay”

Solving time: 32’ Solved at a rather brisk pace – for me. I actually knew all the words in this puzzle or at least believed they meant what the clue implied. A nice thing about … Read more “Times 23601/not a dictionary word to be found”

Solving time: 1h36 Pretty tough going. Luckily the two long ones were places I have heard of – might cause problems for some. I didn’t get the wordplay for ABSCOND until I did this write-up.It … Read more “23600 – lots of food and drink today”

Solving time: 3:49 A quick solve despite inexplicable slowless on 1ac. Some of the cryptic ‘grammar’ was loose in this puzzle (e.g. 1ac, 23dn, 28dn). Quotation of the day: “Since a politician never believes what … Read more “ST 4223 (Sun 6 May) – Lies, damned lies and politics”

Solving time: 18:58 Maths, Physics, Latin, French, English, History. Although I have six Highers, I didn’t spot that “exam” meant “HIGHER” in 1A until I thought to subtract JACK from HIGHJACKER. There was self-kicking. The … Read more “23597 – Excelsior”

Solving time 8:06 Some good stuff here but rather spoiled for me by three clues that seem not quite precise enough – unless Collins or COD (not available to me today) include stuff I don’t … Read more “23,596 – three faults?”

Solving time: 42’ Took some scouring of clues and an empty grid until something fell (first was the anagram at 8D) – from then on made fairly steady progress with the bottom-half significantly easier than … Read more “Times 23595/needed a portolan to find the oche”

Solving time: Gave up on 1dn after about 15 mins. Plenty here for the purist to quibble with. If anyone has a better answer for 1dn, please let me know! Apologies for the late posting, … Read more “ST 4222 (Sun Apr 29) – Puttee-fussing”

Solving time: 27 minutesVery fast for me. Got off to a great start and kept going. I think the only unfamiliar words for me were beetle=jut, barge=hopper and the composer Orlando di Lasso. Reading through … Read more “23,594 – short in duration”

This was a really enjoyable puzzle to solve, mainly because of the quality of the clues. There were a lot of “kickselfs”, where the answer was more obvious than it seemed at first. Indeed, my … Read more “23,592 – Friday fun”